Sri K. S. Eshwarappa 

Sri K. S. Eshwarappa (born 10 June 1948) is an Indian senior Bharatiya Janata Party politician who was Minister of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj of Karnataka from 20 August 2019 to14 April 2022.

Sri K. S. Eshwarappa was the 6th Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka from 12 July 2012 to 12 May 2013. He was Minister of State for Rural development and Panchayat Raj of Karnataka from 20 August 2019 to 26 July 2021. He is a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka. He was the seventh Deputy Chief minister in the BJP government headed by Jagadish Shettar from 2012 to 2013. On 20 August 2019 he was inducted as a Cabinet Minister in the BJP government led by B.S. Yediyurappa. He served as Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Council (2014-2018).

K. S. Eshwarappa was born in Bellary. His father Sharanappa and mother Bassamma moved to Shimoga in the early 1950s. His parents worked in the Bhoopalam Areca Mandi as daily wage workers. When young Eshwarappa also tried to go to work with his parents, his mother opposed the move and urged him to concentrate on his education and earn a good name in society. This inspiration that he got in his childhood, eventually led him to become a social worker.

As a child, Eshwarappa was interested in sports and music. One of his classmates was D. M. Ravindra who later became the Prant Pracharak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (R.S.S.). Narasimha Murthy Iyengar, a well-known V.H.P leader in Shimoga, introduced him to the RSS during his childhood. Thus, his public life began as an activist of the RSS.

While he was a student in the National Commerce College, Shimoga, he actively worked with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (A.B.V.P.), the student wing of RSS. After his graduation, he started his own private business in Shimoga city. He also involved himself with the erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

In 1989, he contested the Karnataka assembly elections as a BJP candidate from Shimoga and defeated a heavyweight, the then health Minister K. H. Srinivas by a margin of 1,304 votes. He became popular with this victory and went on to win four more times from this constituency, losing only once in 1999. In 1992, he became the  President of the State unit of BJP and was instrumental in his party's good performance in the 1994 state assembly elections. In 2000, he was appointed the Chairman of the Central Silk Board when the NDA government was in power.

In the BJP-JDS coalition Government headed by H. D. Kumaraswamy, he was Minister for Water Resources. Following the historic victory of the BJP in the Karnataka state elections in 2008, he became the minister for Power in the B.S. Yeddyurappa government.

In January 2010, he resigned as minister and was unanimously elected as the President of the Karnataka state unit of the ruling BJP. In July 2012, Jagadish Shettar was appointed the Chief minister and Eshwarappa became Deputy Chief minister. He was also entrusted with the Revenue and Rural development portfolios. K. S. Eshwarappa was nominated by his party to the Karnataka Legislative Council in 2014 and became the Leader of the Opposition in the council.

       In the 2018 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election he again contested from Shimaga and won the seat. K. S. Eshwarappawas sworn in as the Rural development and Panchayat Raj minister. K. S. Eshwarappa  was again inducted as the cabinet minister under Basavaraj Bom