Tejaswini Ananthkumar denies plans to quit BJP amid speculations of Congress wooing her

Tejaswini Ananthkumar, vice president at BJP Karnataka unit on Monday rejected reports of her quitting the party and pursuing a political career outside.

"Don't believe speculations. I remain firmly with the BJP," she tweeted, and added: "I am wedded to the party and ideology - no compromise."

The wife of the late union minister Ananth Kumar has been keeping a low profile, focussing more on her social work, driving the nonprofit Adamya Chetana which provides midday meals to school children and free meals to people from low-income groups, and helming weekly tree planting activities.


Two years ago, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited Tejaswini at her residence in Basavanagudi, Bengaluru, in a first high profile visit by a union minister after the BJP denied her a ticket to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

She was expected to succeed her husband as BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate for Bengaluru South in 2019, but the party sprang a surprise by denying her the ticket, and giving ticket to Tejasvi Surya, the present MP, instead.
There have been whispers in political corridors that the BJP leaders, who left the party ahead of the recent assembly elections, had been making efforts to persuade Tejaswini to join the Congress.

There was also a thinking in the Congress, a source said, that she could be a strong candidate from the party to take on Surya in Bengaluru South and wrest the seat for the party, which has been with the BJP since 1991.