Ramesh Jarkiholi was among the 17 MLAs who defected from Congress to the BJP in 2019
Ramesh Jarkiholi, the sitting MLA of Bharatiya Janata Party from Gokak constituency, played an instrumental role in the collapse of the Congress-JD(S) government in 2019, which allowed the BJP to come to power in Karnataka. Ramesh Jarkiholi has been a member of the Karnataka Assembly for six consecutive terms and is looking for a seventh win in the 2023 state polls.
Here are five points about Ramesh Jarkiholi:
1. He won the Gokak Assembly seat in the 1999 polls on a Congress ticket and retained it in 2004, 2008, 2013 and 2018. In 2019, he left the Congress to join BJP and won the Gokak seat again in the by-election.
2. Ramesh Jarkiholi was among the 17 MLAs who defected from Congress to the BJP in 2019 leading to the collapse of Congress-JDS coalition government. He is said to have orchestrated the defection of MLAs, which helped BJP come to power.
3. In 2020, Mr Jarkiholi was given the water resources portfolio in B S Yediyurappa's cabinet. He resigned a year later “on moral grounds” after getting embroiled in a sex tape scandal.
4. He is the eldest among five brothers. His brother Satish Jarkiholi is a Congress MLA from Yemkanmardi seat and another brother Balachandra Jarkiholi is a BJP MLA from Arabhavi constituency.
5. Ramesh Jarkiholi completed his graduation from the JSS College, Karnataka University, in 1981. He comes from a family which owns a sugar mills business in Belgaum and belongs to the politically influential Nayak community.