What Modi told Tejaswini Ananthkumar when they met briefly at Bengaluru BJP rally

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived on the stage at Palace Grounds in Benglauru on Saturday evening to address the BJP campaign rally, probably the only person he paused to interact briefly was Tejaswini Ananthkumar, wife of the late Union Minister Ananthkumar. This was also the first time Tejaswini and Modi came face-to-face briefly after the BJP national leadership denied her the ticket to contest from Bengaluru South, though the Karnataka BJP unit had favoured her candidature.

At the Palace Grounds where the rally took place, the BJP had made seating arrangements in such a way that her name figured in the second row. But when Chikkaballapura candidate B.N.Bache Gowda did not turn up for the rally, the party leaders invited Tejaswini to occupy the seat meant for him. She politely declined, and chose to sit in the second row in the seat designated for her.

Modi and the late Ananthkumar were known to each other for a long time, and the PM made it a point to visit Benglauru when Ananthkumar died in November to pay his respects. Later, when she visited Delhi in December, Tejaswini had paid a courtesy visit to the Prime Minister.


"The PM greeted me and was very courteous. I informed him about my appointment as Vice President of Karnataka BJP. He asked me to work for the party," Tejaswini told ET, when asked about their brief chat. He also enquired about the family's well-being and about her two-month old grandson.

Tejaswini, who heads the nonprofit Adamya Chetana, has campaigned for the party in Chikpet, Jayanagar and Bommanahalli Assembly constituencies which come under Bengaluru South Lok Sabha seat.