Senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah took the oath of office as the Chief Minister of Karnataka today at a ceremony held at Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief DK Shivakumar as the Deputy CM and eight MLAs including, veteran leaders like Dr G Parameshwara, KH Muniyappa and KJ George as Cabinet Ministers were sworn in by Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot.

The newly-inducted Karnataka Cabinet is being seen as a balancing act by the Congress leadership ensuring representation of communities and regions.

Kelachandra Joseph George, popularly known as KJ George, is a five-time MLA and he is considered as a close aide of CM Siddaramaiah and his loyalty to the Gandhi family is well known in the party circles.

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In the recently-concluded Karnataka Assembly elections, George contested from the Sarvagnanagar constituency and comfortably defeated Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate by a margin of over 50,000 votes.

It can be said that KJ George is one of the tallest Congress leaders in Karnataka and he is now synonymous with the Sarvagnanagar assembly seat. George has been elected from the same seat since the constituency came into existence.

In the 2018 assembly polls, George defeated BJP’s MN Reddy by a margin of 53,304 votes. In the 2013 assembly elections, the veteran leader defeated BJP’s Padmanabha Reddy by 22,854 votes. Before that, George won assembly polls from the Bharatinagar constituency twice.

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KJ George is an out-and-out party loyalist as he has been with Congress since the time of Indira Gandhi. He began his political career with the Youth Congress and rose to the ranks of a minister in the past Congress governments in Karnataka.

George has cultivated an image of being an astute politician and he served as a minister from 1989 onwards.

He has served as a minister in the governments of Veerendra Patil and S Bangarappa. The five-time MLA is known for being a close confidant of Siddaramaiah and he was even made home minister in the Siddaramaiah Cabinet in 2013. KJ George is credited for facilitating many of the infrastructure projects including the airport metro link.

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Although most of George's life and political career are associated with Karnataka, he has strong connections to Kerala. His family was into agriculture and had moved from Kerala to Gonikoppa in Karnataka’s Kodagu district in the 1960s.

He has come a long way since his humble beginnings as a coffee farmer’s son in Kodagu. Today George owns huge swathes of land in Bengaluru city and runs a huge business empire, the Kelachandra Group.

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(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)

First Published:May 20, 2023 3:06 PM IST