Who is Anantkumar Hegde?

Anantkumar Hegde, who recently wrote a letter to tyre company Ceat’s MD and CEO pertaining to a new Diwali ad featuring Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, is a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician and member of parliament from Uttara Kannada constituency. Hegde was first elected to the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996 from the Uttar Kanara seat.

He recently grabbed headlines after he wrote a letter to Ceat’s CEO countering their new Diwali advertisement, which features Amir Khan. The politician argued that why is the firm not addressing the “problem blocking roads in the name of Namaz and noise emitted from mosques during Azan”.

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The ad features Aamir Khan asking people to not burst crackers on the streets during the festival.

In the letter to the firm’s MD and CEO, Anant Vardhan Goenka, Hegde asked him to take note of the recent commercial that caused “unrest among Hindus,” and expressed hope that the company would respect “Hindu sentiment” in the future.  

Hegde, who has served as the former Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, calls himself a farmer by profession with wild interest across different domains of agriculture, horticulture, environment, linguistic science, art, nanoscience, emerging new-age technologies and skill education.

Hegde is also a member of the socio-religious group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. (RSS)

Anantkumar Hegde is also associated with and heading a social group called Kadamba for the past three decades. Kadamba waa founded in 2000. According to Anant Kumar Hedge’s profile, Kadamba is one of the multidimensional services as well as business enterprise, including NGO, Cooperative institutions, and private business entities. He has been the founding president of the organizations.

Hegde narrowly lost in the next election in 1999 to Margaret Alva of Congress. Since then, he has been re-elected four consecutive times from Uttara Kannada (Lok Sabha constituency) from 2004-2009 Lok Sabha to 2019-2024.