Hassan: Former Karnataka Chief Minister and BJP veteran DV Sadananda Gowda announced that he has decided to retire from electoral politics.

The announcement by the former Union Minister, currently an MP from Bangalore North, is significant coming ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

"I have decided not to continue in electoral politics. For 30 years my party has given me everything. After BS Yediyurappa (veteran BJP leader and former Chief Minister) I'm the number one beneficiary in the party," Mr Gowda said when asked if he would be the state BJP chief again.

Speaking to reporters, he said, "I have been in politics for 30 years - 10 years as MLA, 20 years as MP, one year as Chief Minister, one-and-a-half years as leader of opposition (in Legislative Council), five years as deputy leader of opposition in the assembly, four-and-a-half years as party president, and seven years as a minister in the Union cabinet under Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

"If a politician is not happy after all this, he is not a true politician. He is selfish," he said.

In June, DV Sadananda Gowda urged BJP's top brass to counter speculation that 13 incumbent party MPs, including himself, would not get party tickets for the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for next year, while seemingly expressing his frustration about the party doing little in this regard.

Recently, he also tried to call out the party for not consulting the state leaders before forging an alliance with the JD(S), and lamented the delay in appointing a leader of opposition in the Karnataka assembly.

Mr Gowda resigned from the Union Council of Ministers in July 2021.

Besides being the chemicals and fertilisers minister in the Narendra Modi government, Mr Gowda has held portfolios such as Railways, Law, and Statistics and Programme Implementation.