KR Ramesh Kumar: News

KR Ramesh Kumar is an Indian politician who is a member of the Indian National Congress from Karnataka. He served as the 16th Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly from May 2018 to July 2019. Kumar is a six-term member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly from the Srinivaspur assembly constituency in Kolar district. He was born on November 22, 1949, in the Kolar district. Kumar joined politics after he was encouraged by Devaraj Urs during his college days. Following this, he started his career in politics with the Indian National Congress in the 1970s. Later on, he joined the Janata Party in the mid-1980s. In the 1990s, Kumar joined the Janata Dal and again joined Congress in the early 2000s. He became the Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly in 1994. In 2016, he was appointed as Cabinet minister in the Siddaramaiah government. Kumar had also held the Health and Family Welfare Ministry portfolio in the Karnataka government. Kumar sparked a controversy in 2019 when he made an insensitive statement in the Assembly where he compared himself to a bad word survivor who had to go through repeated questioning during a discussion on controversial audio clips that allegedly mentioned his name for taking Rs. 50 crore. Later on, he clarified his statement, apologized to the MLAs, and called it media hype.