Bengaluru, July 14 -- Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ramachandra Gowda (87) passed away at a private hospital in Bengaluru today due to age-related illness.

A former Minister and 5-time member of the Karnataka Legislative Council from 1988 to 2018, Ramachandra Gowda was from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) stables. He started his career in the Jan Sangh, the predecessor to the BJP.

Shortly after V.S. Acharya won from Udupi Municipality in 1968, recording Jan Sangh's first-ever victory in South India, Gowda won as a Councillor in Bangalore City Corporation in 1970. He was from the first generation of leaders from the party to lay the groundwork for what became the BJP later. He was senior to former Chief Minister B.S. ...