At 16, Ananth Kumar vowed to become PM

BENGALURU: As a 16-year-old jailed for protesting against the Emergency, Ananth Kumar declared he’d become Prime Minister one day.
His childhood friend Vishnukanth Chatpalli said: “We were in Class 12 in PC Jabin Science College, Hubballi. We were actively involved in the RSS and ABVP and were inspired by Jayaprakash Narayan. About 14 students, including Ananth, staged a protest in college against the Emergency and we were jailed.That’s when he said he’d be PM one day.”
Achyut Limaye, another childhood friend, said, “We were surprised when he said that. As a non-Congress man then, it was impossible.”
Limaye, Ananth Kumar, Vishnukanth, Anil Sahasrabudhe, the present chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and G M Inamdhar were known faces in Hubballi and neighbouring areas for their activism. Vishnukanth said, "As students, we decided to invest our energy for the betterment of the country. I chose engineering and Ananth chose politics. His leadership skills and potential to visualise the future were his strengths.”
Ananth Kumar was also an environmentalist and dreamt of a hunger-free society. In 1998, he started Adamya Chetana in memory of his mother Girija. The NGO serves mid-day meals in thousands of schools across the state.
'If the BJP came to power, he’d have been the obvious choice for CM'
“If the BJP came to power, he’d have been the obvious choice for CM,” said a senior BJP leader who had a long association with Kumar.
Like BS Yeddyurappa, Kumar is credited with crafting BJP's rise in Karnataka and was widely regarded as BJP’s face of the south.
He played a vital role in making BJP a formidable alternative to the Congress and Janata Dal (S) in the state and also bringing the party to power in the south for the first time in 2008. His organizational skills and proficiency in Kannada, Hindi, Marathi and English caught the attention of the party’s top leaders as he could translate their speeches. He was eventually made the BJP national general secretary.
Kumar came close to becoming chief minister in 2011 after Yeddyurappa resigned when his name figured in the Lokayukta report on illegal mining. Though Kumar succeeded in getting his name cleared by the party central leadership, Yeddyurappa reportedly thwarted his plans by installing DV Sadananda Gowda followed by Jagadish Shettar by using his clout over Lingayat MLAs. Kumar finally reconciled himself to the fact that he had no chance of getting the CM’s gaddi while Yeddyurappa was at the helm in the state.