Overview
- Ramachandra Gowda, a long-serving BJP leader and former Karnataka minister, died in Bengaluru on Tuesday, July 14, after treatment for age-related illness.
- Reports disagree slightly on his age and precise circumstances with The Hindu giving his age as 87 while IANS and PTI report 88 and one account saying he died at 6:20 a.m. in a private hospital in Chandra Layout.
- Senior BJP figures including B.S. Yediyurappa and Union Minister Pralhad Joshi issued tributes calling his death a major loss to the party and Karnataka politics.
- Family and party sources say final rites will be held at the Gowda family’s Kamakshipalya property with party workers, leaders and well-wishers expected to attend.
- Gowda’s political life stretched from Jan Sangh and RSS activism through city councils, the City Improvement Trust Board and BDA to five consecutive terms in the Karnataka Legislative Council from 1988 to 2018, and his passing marks the loss of a generation that built the BJP’s organisational base in the state.