Prajwal Revanna | |
---|---|
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha | |
Assumed office 23 May 2019 | |
Preceded by | H. D. Deve Gowda |
Constituency | Hassan |
Personal details | |
Born | Hassan, Karnataka, India | 5 August 1990
Political party | Janata Dal (Secular)(Expelled) |
Parent(s) |
H. D. Revanna Bhavani Revanna |
Relatives |
H. D. Deve Gowda (grandfather) H. D. Kumaraswamy (uncle) Anitha Kumaraswamy (aunt) Nikhil Kumar (cousin) |
Residence(s) | Hassan, Karnataka [1] |
Alma mater | BE – Mechanical Bangalore Institute of Technology [1] |
Profession | Politician |
Source: [1] |
Prajwal Revanna (born 5 August 1990) is an Indian politician and the member of the 17th Lok Sabha from Hassan Constituency [2] and is the 3rd youngest member of parliament in India. [3]
Prajwal is the son of H. D. Revanna, legislator and former Minister for Public Works Department of Karnataka. He is a grandson of former Prime Minister of India H. D. Deve Gowda and a nephew of former Chief Minister of Karnataka, H. D. Kumaraswamy.
Prajwal graduated in mechanical engineering from Bangalore Institute of Technology in 2014. [4] He joined a master's degree programme in Australia but discontinued it to join politics.
In 2019, he was appointed as the state general secretary of the Janata Dal (Secular) party (JD(S)). [5] He worked for more than 8 years in JD(S) party.
In 2024 Indian general election, he is contesting for the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency from Janata Dal (Secular) party in alliance with BJP. [6] In a sex scandal controversy [7] which involved his name, he was officially suspended from his JD(S) party. An investigation and possible trial for the sex scandal allegation are yet to start. An SIT (Special Investigations Team) has been set up by Karnataka government to probe further into the allegations.
In 2014, Revanna joined the campaign of H. D. Deve Gowda from Hassan in the 2014 Indian general election. [8] In 2015, he was among the 10 young aspiring politicians in India to be chosen by Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, UK, to be exposed to the British way of governance. Although a JD(S) member, his entry into politics was delayed after the party denied him a ticket in the 2018 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election. [8] Nevertheless, he was to some capacity involved in the politics of Hassan.
In 2019, Deve Gowda allowed Prajwal to contest from Hassan for the Lok Sabha, himself moving to Tumkur. [9] Prajwal won from Hassan, and became the only winner from his party's six candidates that contested the elections. [10] Within 12 hours of the win, saddened by his grandfather's defeat from Tumkur, Prajwal announced his resignation and offered the seat to Gowda, [11] who asked him to reconsider the decision. [12] In September 2019, the Karnataka High Court issued a summons to him over an incomplete election affidavit. Petitioners of the summons accused Prajwal of filing a false and incomplete affidavit with his nomination papers during the 2019 elections. [13] In January 2020, Justice John Michael D'Cunha dismissed the first petition on grounds that the petitioner had not complied with the statutory procedure under Section 81(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the second on technical grounds. [14]
Prajwal again contested from Hassan in the 2024 general election for the Lok Sabha. [15] On the day of polls, his polling agent filed a complaint with the police alleging that some morphed photos and videos of Prajwal were being widely circulated in Hassan district. The agent alleged that "the accused are going door to door and showing these obscene photos and videos, provoking people not to vote for Prajwal..." [16] It was reported that thousands of sex videos featuring multiple women, allegedly recorded by Prajwal himself, were circulated ahead of elections in the constituency. After it received growing attention, the media termed it a "sex scandal", and on 27 April, it was reported that the government of Karnataka announced a Special Investigation Team to probe it after being sought to by the Karnataka State Commission for Women. [17] [18] The following day, it was reported that Prajwal had fled the country to Germany. [19] The Commission alleged that women were forced or filmed without their consent. [20]