Shobha Karandlaje, a Member of Parliament from Karnataka’s Udupi-Chikmagalur who was inducted into the Union council of ministers on Wednesday, is a former Karnataka minister. She joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1996 and served as a member of the state legislative council before getting elected as a lawmaker in 2008.
A postgraduate in sociology, Karandlaje, who has been named as Union minister of state for agriculture and farmers welfare, is considered to be a close aide to Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa.
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Karandlaje has been known for her controversial statements. In July 2017, she submitted a list to the central government alleging 23 Hindus were “murdered” in Karnataka since 2015 when Congress was in power in the state. It later emerged that the list included even those who died by suicide. In December 2017, she was booked for inflammatory tweets related to the alleged rape and murder of a Dalit girl. When a 19-year-old man died under mysterious circumstances in Honnavar in Uttara Kannada, Karandlaje claimed that he was tortured by “Jihadis”. The allegation fuelled tensions months before the 2018 assembly elections. The state police on December 11, 2017, put out a detailed response by the forensic science laboratory in Manipal saying there was no evidence to suggest that the man was tortured.