Eshwar Khandre

Eshwara Khandre has his roots in a political family of Bhalki, Karnataka, where his father, Bheemanna Khandre, had been a prominent Congress leader and a minister in the state. Before his full-time political career, he earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from one of the Gulbarga University’s constituent colleges, Poojya Doddappa Appa College of Engineering, Gulbarga.

He won the Bhalki Assembly constituency in 2008, the beginning of his electoral career, which had been linked to his family’s political connections. He was later re-elected and became a four-term legislator with strong connections to the area’s civic affairs.

Khandre has been active in the Karnataka government with different ministerial appointments, first as Minister of State for Municipalities & Local Bodies and Public Enterprises (2016–2018), then since May 2023 as Cabinet Minister of Forest, Ecology & Environment under Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, where his focus is on environmental protection and forest management.

At the party, he is the Working President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee. This position ranks him high and gives him a strategic role in the Congress party. He is the voice of the party in regional policy discussions and legislative committees.

Divine the political work by Khandre is accompanied by his family’s public service in a big way, as his son, Sagar Eshwar Khandre, was elected an MP representing the Bidar Lok Sabha Constituency in 2024, thus keeping on with the family’s public service legacy.

In 2025, Eshwara Khandre is still a cabinet minister in Karnataka and a senior Congress leader, truly a man of the state, at the same time engaging in both governance and party strategy.