MV Rajeev Gowda, ‘Karnataka’s Shashi Tharoor’, To Run For The Polls From Bangalore North

MV Rajeev Gowda, a politician, academician, and economist, has been a former member of Rajya Sabha and the national spokesperson of Congress. Considering his fluent English and educational background, Gowda is called ‘Karnataka’s Shashi Tharoor’. He currently chairs the Congress Research Department and is a professor of economics and social sciences. He had also served as the director of the central board of RBI. Currently, Gowda is working as an advisor for Bridge India, a non-profit think tank based in London. Gowda has been nominated by the Congress to run the polls from Bangalore North in Karnataka.

An alumnus of the University of California and University of Pennsylvania, Rajeev Gowda comes from a political background, being the son of a former legislative assembly speaker in Karnataka. His father Late M V Venkatappa had also worked as a member of land reform committee and was an eminent politician of the state.

In 2004, Rajeev Gowda was chosen to launch the Congress Party national younger generation election campaign in Guwahati. He had also been part of several committees including the committee on human resource development, the court of the JNU, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Science among others, being part of an MP in the upper house.

During his recent election campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, he accused the central government of being ‘very unfair and unjust to Karnataka’.

Bangalore North comprises K. R. Pura, Byatarayanapura, Yeshvanthapura, Dasarahalli, Mahalakshmi Layout, Malleshwaram, Hebbal, and Pulakeshinagar. The 5 out of 8 assembly seats are held by BJP candidates and 3 by INC. Since 2004, the constituency has seen the BJP winning from here. In the last two general elections, 2014 and 2019 Sadananda Gowda was elected from Bangalore North. This year, BJP has dropped Sadananda Gowda and nominated Shobha Karandlaje to run for the polls.

During the last elections, BJP secured 52.87 percent votes here and INC registered 43.41% votes. It is a general category seat with a 78.08% literacy rate. The SC, ST, and Muslim populations in the constituency are 12.5%, 2%, and 12.97% respectively.