Danappagouda Basanagouda Inamdar, former Minister and veteran Congress leader, died in Bengaluru on April 25. He was 74. The final rites will be performed in his native village of Neginal near Kittur in Belagavi district on April 26 at 2 p.m.
He was admitted to Manipal hospital in Bengaluru in March following complaints of ailments of the lungs and liver, family sources said. Son Basanagouda Inamdar was beside him at the hospital when the end came, they said.
He entered politics in 1983, after the death of his father B.D. Inamdar. He won the Kittur seat as a Janata Party candidate. He joined the Congress in 1991.
He had served as an MLA representing Kittur. He won five of the nine Assembly elections he participated in.
During interactions with journalists, he was fond of saying that he was the first Information Technology Minister of Karnataka and that he started the IT.Com event in Bengaluru. The portfolio had been with the Chief Minister earlier.
He served as a full-time member on the board of the Sirasangi Desai Foundation Trust. He had been recently elected chairman of the Kittur Rani Channamma residential school for girls. He served as chairman of the Rani Sugars factory for decades.
The Congress had chosen Babasaheb Patil, a distant relative of Mr Inamdar, for the Kittur seat overlooking the claims of Mr Inamdar’s sons or daughters-in-law. His daughter-in-law Lakshmi Inamdar Patil had announced that she would contest as an independent. But she was persuaded not to enter the fray by some Congress leaders.
