Kishan Reddy: From Humble Beginnings to Influential BJP Leader and Cabinet Minister
Hyderabad: Kishan anna, or Telangana BJP president G. Kishan Reddy, whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi selected for his Cabinet 3.0 on Sunday, was rewarded for doubling the tally of MPs from the state in the recent elections. This will be his second stint in the Union Cabinet.
Kishan Reddy took out the Vijay Sankalp Yatra, covering all Assembly segments in the state much before the Lok Sabha elections to strengthen the morale of party workers.
The 63-year old leader who hails from a middle class family was elected to the State Assembly thrice — in 2004 (Himayatnagar, later merged into Khairatabad), 2009 and 2014 (Amberpet). He was floor leader in the undivided AP and Telangana Assemblies.
In the 2018 Assembly polls, he suffered a defeat at the hands of the BRS but, five months later, he was elected MP from Secunderabad in June 2019 and was inducted into the Union Council of Ministers as minister of state for home. This year, he defeated the Congress’s Danam Nagender by 49,944 votes in Secunderabad.
Reddy was made the first BJP state president of Telangana from 2014 to 2016, and again on July 5, 2023, when he succeeded Bandi Sanjay Kumar. Kishan Reddy also served as president of the BJYM (youth wing of BJP) in 2002.
Hailing from Timmapur in Rangareddy district, Reddy has a diploma in tool design, and has been involved in politics since his student days with ABVP and was associated with the Jan Sangh. He started his political career as a youth leader of Janata Party in 1977 and joined the BJP when it was formed in 1980. He served as first state treasurer of the BJP in undivided AP in the early 1980s and also became state secretary of the BJP Yuva Morcha.
For his work for the welfare of children with heart problems, the Unicef honoured him with 'Child-Friendly Legislator' award. During the separate Telangana movement, he took out Telangana Poru Yatra for 25 days.
As the BJYM president, he founded World Youth Council against Terrorism (WYCAT) a non-political organisation to fight terrorism across the world. He organised the International Youth Conference Against Terrorism (IYCT) under the auspices of WYCAT in New Delhi in which over 193 delegates participated from 54 countries.
Kishan Reddy also conducted Seema Suraksha Jagaran Yatra to express solidarity with the people living in the hostile border areas and impress upon them as well as the government to be more vigilant to make borders pores-proof. He covered eight states travelling more than 1200 km by road for 45 days in the Border dist villages adjoining Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Nepal.