C. T. Ravi
Chikkamagaravalli Thimme Gowda Ravi is an Indian politician who was the former National General Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party and a four-time legislator from Chikmagalur Constituency of Karnataka State from
2004 to 2023. He was a cabinet minister in the Government of Karnataka.He resigned his post as the cabinet minister after being appointed the National General secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party.
Politics
Ravi was a four-time legislator from Chiikamagaluru assembly seat of Karnataka. He has been at the forefront of Hindutva movement in coastal Karnataka.Early political career
Ravi was a BJP Karnataka Yuva Morcha President. Later, Rajnath Singh made him Special Invitee and he went on to become the State General Secretary of the party. He also represented the party in press conferences.Elections
He unsuccessfully contested against C. R. Sageer Ahamed of Congress in 1999 Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections. He lost by 982 votes.In the 2004 Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections, C. T. Ravi defeated C. R. Sageer Ahamed by a margin of more than 25,000 Votes in Chikmagalur, thus marking C. T. Ravi's entry to Karnataka Legislature.
When Karnataka Legislative Assembly was dissolved in 2007 and Karnataka went to polls in April–May 2008, he was again fielded by BJP from Chikmagalur Constituency and won.
In 2023 his winning streak came to an end when his once own aide H D Tammaiah defeated him in the Assembly Elections.
Minister For Karnataka government
In 2012 he was named Higher Education Minister. In the post he dealt with Dakshina Kannada, Chikkamagaluru district education and other development projects and he served as the Minister of Tourism and Kannada language in the Fourth B. S. Yeddyurappa ministry and was also Minister of Sports and Youth from January 2020 and resigned on 4 October 2020.When addressing party workers in Chikkamagalur, Ravi made derogatory statements. In Kannada, he associated those who resist or do not vote for Modi to a word that belittles women on April 14, 2019. The committee led by State Women's Congress President Dr. B. Pushpa Amarnath complained to the National Commission for Women.
Legal proceedings
2011 land scam case
An FIR was filed against Ravi by Lokayukta police for allegedly being involved in a land scam after a complaint from a municipal councillor. The complainant claimed that Ravi got allotted three civic amenities sites in his wife's name in favour of the Anjaneya Education Society, run by his relatives by giving fake documents for ₹12.09 lakh while the market value was over ₹5 crore. However authorities claimed that there was no education society registered in the name of his wife and he got the land for a school which did not even exist.The complainant also accused Ravi of getting two other residential sites allotted in his wife's name in Chikamagalur "using his position as an MLA, by adopting backdoor methods".
2012 Disproportionate assets case
In 2012, a RTI activist A.C. Kumar of Chikkamagaluru filed a private lawsuit blaming Ravi of having assets disproportionally large to his documented revenue sources from 2004 to 2010. He stated that in this period, his known revenue sources were ₹ 49 lakh, while his assets were ₹ 3.18 crore. In 2015, the Supreme Court gave guidelines regulating petitioners to file affidavits in support of their allegations or complaints, Ravi asked the high court to dismiss the whole prosecution on the basis that the petitioner did not file an affidavit. In order to give the petitioner, AC Kumar, a chance to file an affidavit in support of his accusations made against Ravi, the high court sent the case back to the special court.Controversies
About 30 lecturers staged protest against Ravi in a resort in Yalahanka where Ravi was staying in August 2015 claiming that he had cheated them of their money. The protestors claimed that Ravi who was higher education minister collected money from them promising permanent jobs in aided diploma colleges. They claimed that they had lost both their money and jobs and demanded a refund. They also raised slogans against Ravi. The BJP leaders quickly jolted the protesters inside the resort when they saw media persons approaching.Hate Speeches
C T Ravi received a notice from the Election Commission for his 'inflammatory' speech at the Sakleshpur election rally in Hassan district on 6 April 2009.The Karnataka High Court in March 2018 ordered issuance of notices to Union minister Anant Kumar Hegde and MLA C.T. Ravi alleging that the two BJP leaders made provocative speeches inciting communal violence during November 2017.