Bengaluru: Tejaswi Surya, the BJP candidate for Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency filed his nomination here on Tuesday, hardly a day after the saffron party announced his candidature for the prestigious seat which was represented by former Union Minister late Ananth Kumar for six terms.
After getting the B form from BJP State President B.S.Yeddyurappa, Tejaswi went to the residence of Ananth Kumar to seek the blessings of his widow Tejaswini who was expected to get the ticket. He then filed his papers, accompanied by Chickpet MLA, Uday Garudachar, Basavanagudi MLA and his uncle Ravi Subramanya and Rajya Sabha member Rajiv Chandrashekar. Interestingly BJP senior leaders and former ministers R. Ashok, V. Somanna, Bommanahalli MLA, Sathish Reddy and Bengaluru South MLA, Krishnappa gave the event a miss. Sources said that after the dramatic announcement of Tejaswi's name, Ashok and Somanna are upset and openly expressed their anger before the party cadre.
Twenty seven year old Tejaswi, a practising advocate in the Karnataka High Court. is a good orator and has argued many cases. He is a regular columnist in many mainstream regional and national newspapers and online opinion portals. He is an alumnus of Kumarans School, National College Jayanagar and National Law School of India. He was a swayamsevak from childhood and worked as secretary, ABVP, the student wing of the BJP.
Tejaswi did campaign in the 2014 general elections, organizing public meetings across the country in support of the BJP`s PM candidate Narendra Modi. He addressed more than 100 public meetings of various socio-economic groups. He was also part of former Deputy PM L.K. Advani's Jan Chetana Yatra in 2011, which was launched by the veteran leader against black money. Interestingly late Ananth Kumar's widow, Tejaswini herself had prevailed upon her husband to take this young activist across the country.
Tejaswi is co-founder of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Excellence (CEE) , a non profit foundation in Bengaluru that runs projects in spheres like education, employment and entrepreneurship. He is currently general secretary of BJP Yuva Morcha.
