Bengaluru: JD-S President H.D. Kumaraswamy was sworn in as a Union Cabinet Minister in the Modi 3.0 on Sunday.
Kumaraswamy was the ninth person to take the oath as a Union Minister and the first among allies, administered by President Droupadi Murmu.
Kumaraswamy wore a traditional white shirt and dhoti while taking the oath.
He won the Mandya Lok Sabha seat with a thumping margin of 2.84 lakh votes against Congress candidate Venkaramane Gowda and polled 58.34 per cent (8.51 lakh) votes against Gowda, who received 38.85 per cent (5.67 lakh) votes.
Kumaraswamy (65) has single-handedly defended his party and family after the surfacing of an alleged obscene video scandal involving his nephew Prajwal Revanna.
In 2005, JD-S was part of the coalition government with Congress in the state under Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh. However, on February 3, 2006, Kumaraswamy ditched the coalition government along with his 42 MLAs and formed the government with the help of the BJP.
This was the first time that Kumaraswamy became the Chief Minister and also the first time the BJP came to power in South India. However, the BJP-JD(S) government fell on October 9, 2007.
He became the Chief Minister for the second time when he headed the Congress-JD(S) coalition government from May 23, 2018, to July 23, 2019.
–IANS