Karnataka cabinet: GT Devegowda’s profile

Name : G T Devegowda

Portfolio: Higher Education

Party : JD(S)

Age : 67

Spouse : K Lalitha

Birth place: Gungaralu Chatra

Father : Thimmegowda

Mother : NA

Education : 8th pass

Profession: Politician/Agriculturist

G T Deve Gowda's Political journey:

• A senior politician who has been in the field since 1971, a three time MLA and a progressive farmer, who has served in the co-operative sector and as co-operation minister, is 66-year-old G.T. Devegowda.
• Devegowda is a former minister and a three-time MLA from Hunsur and Chamundeshwari. He swept the seat winning 61,351 votes as opposed to Siddaramaiah who managed only 37,279 votes.
• He started his political career as Secretary of the Agricultural Primary Co-operative Society in the 1970s.
• He was first seen in the political sphere when he supported the then Congress candidate Kempere Gowda in the 1978 polls.
• GT Devegowda then contested assembly elections and won from Hunsur in 2004.
• He, however, lost the parliamentary elections to Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar by a narrow margin in the same year.
• Devegowda joined the BJP in 2007. However, he shifted to the JD(S) in 2013 and won the Chamundeshwari seat.