Tejasvi Surya

Lakya Suryanarayana Tejasvi Surya (Kannada pronunciation: [t̪eːdʒɐsʋi suːɾja]; born 16 November 1990) is an Indian politician, RSS swayamsevak and lawyer serving as the Member of Parliament in the 17th Lok Sabha from the Bharatiya Janata Party, representing the Bangalore South constituency. He is also the president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha since 26 September 2020.
Lakya Suryanarayana Tejasvi Surya was born on 16 November 1990 in Bangalore, Karnataka. His father is the former Joint Commissioner of Excise, L. A. Suryanarayana, while his uncle is the three-time MLA from Basavanagudi constituency, L. A. Ravi Subramanya. His mother is named Rama.
At the age of 9, Surya sold his paintings and donated the amount to the Army's Kargil fund while studying at the St. Paul's High School, Belgaum. He was then awarded the National Balashree Honour in 2001 while studying at Sri Kumaran Children's Home, Thyagarajanagar for Creative Scientific Innovation. He later graduated from Bangalore Institute of Legal Studies with a Bachelor of Academic Law and an LLB.
Surya is trained in Carnatic music and he owns an NGO called Arise India, which works in the area of school education. He has previously written for IndiaFacts.
In 2024, he became the first Indian public representative to complete the Ironman challenge.
He is married to Chennai based classical singer, dancer and Youtuber Sivasri Skandaprasad, who is known for rendition of various scores including Kannada version of songs of Ponniyin Selvan Part 2. They got married on 6 March 2025.
Surya was an active member of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and was even the General Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM). He had actively contributed to the Bharatiya Janata Party campaign for the 2014 Indian general election and in 2017 he helped organise the BJP's 'Mangalore Chalo' rally. He then led the Digital Communications Team of Karnataka BJP during the 2018 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election. As a lawyer, he had represented many BJP leaders like Mahesh Hegde (editor of Post-Card News), Pratap Simha (MP from Mysore) and had helped lawyer Ashok Haranhalli in defending corruption cases of B.S. Yeddyurappa. He has been mentored by R. Ashoka and V. Somanna. While his uncle, Ravi Subramanya, is a senior leader of the BJP and an MLA representing Basavanagudi, Surya maintains that his politics was never connected and remains unconnected with his uncle's.
The Bangalore South (Lok Sabha constituency) was represented since 1996 by former minister Ananth Kumar until his death in 2018. Tejasvi Surya was chosen to contest for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from this constituency over Kumar's wife, Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, due to his positive record of work. While she initially had the support of BJP Karnataka state president B.S. Yeddyurappa, senior BJP and RSS leader B.L. Santosh convinced the party's leadership to choose Surya. He won the elections by defeating B. K. Hariprasad of Congress by 331,192 votes, making him the youngest MP in the BJP, after having assumed office at the age of 28 years, 6 months, 7 days.
Surya took oath as an MP in Kannada on 17 June 2019. In June 2019, he requested the central government to revert its 2014 decision to reverse the requirement of knowing the local language in the recruitment for banks. On 10 July 2019, during the Zero Hour, Surya requested the Home Minister Amit Shah to extend the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to Karnataka, citing the increasing influx of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in his state. When a holy site was vandalised in Hampi, Surya raised the issue in Parliament, urging the government to ensure better security for the country's sacred monuments. He sought to know whether the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare would ban electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), including e-cigarettes.
Over the course of the 17 Lok Sabha, Surya has submitted 379 questions to Ministers, participated in 36 debates and member of the Standing Parliamentary Committees on Communications and Information Technology, Science and Technology, the Environment and Climate Change and the Joint Committees on Offices of Profit and the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019. His parliamentary work earned him the 'Best Debutant Parliamentarian of the Year' Award from the Lokmat Group in March 2023. Key interventions included advocating for regional language inclusion in Rural Bank examinations, which led to the introduction of RRB exams in 13 regional languages including Kannada. He also advocated for Bengaluru's classification as a metro city under IT rules for 50% HRA benefits. As a member of the Standing Committee on IT and Joint Committee on the Data Protection Bill, he contributed to drafting the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. His other parliamentary initiatives included addressing drug abuse concerns, promoting ease of doing business for the hospitality industry, supporting the "One Nation, One Election" concept, and advocating for amendments to the Prevention of Cruelty Against Animals Act.
In October 2019, Surya expressed his concern over the short term for the city's Mayor. He urged the Chief Minister of Karnataka to draft and pass an exclusive legislation for Bangalore, the Nava Bengaluru Act, to replace the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1975. On the problem of garbage in Bangalore, Surya responded that he could only bring it to the notice of the authorities and suggested to admonish them. He then claimed he lacked any authority to solve the problem. This response received mixed criticism from the public.
To address the access of his constituents to quality education, Surya runs the NaMo Vidya Nidhi Scheme independently of the government.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in India, Surya launched a Bangalore South coronavirus task force, which included free home delivery of essential goods, emergency medical assistance, and mobile COVID-19 testing kiosks. He revamped 4 hospitals through MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) funds, adding over 350 ICU beds at a time of severe shortage and facilitating the purchase of 2 mobile healthcare units.
During his first term in Parliament, Surya ensured that under PM Modi’s Ayushman Bharat Mission, 1.5 lakh free treatments worth approximately ₹431 crore were offered to residents of Bengaluru South constituency — accounting for over half of the total beneficiaries in the city. In the same time, the number of Jan Aushadhi Kendras in Bengaluru were increased from 14 to over 120 — the highest in any Parliamentary constituency in India.
On 7 March 2023, Union Health Minister Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya inaugurated the NaMo Free Dialysis Centre in Bengaluru South that was set up by Surya under MPLADS.
Surya’s office also runs the NaMo Arogya Nidhi Scheme independent of the government, through which he has provided over ₹1.2 crore worth free prescription medicines to 1000 underprivileged senior citizens during his term.
Surya focused on decongesting Bengaluru and developing its infrastructure, helping secure approvals for Phase 2A and 2B of Namma Metro spanning 73.92 km at ₹14,788 crore, connecting Central Silk Board to the Bengaluru International Airport. He has also been pushing to expedite the approvals for Phase 3 of Namma Metro. He advocated for the Bengaluru Suburban Rail Project (BSRP), a 148 km rapid transport system costing ₹15,767 crore, and monitored the development of the 280 km Satellite Town Ring Road (STRR) aimed at reducing traffic congestion by 30%. Under his supervision, the Yellow Metro Line from RV Road to Bommasandra was completed, and two stretches of the Purple Line were made operational. He also pushed for the expansion of Kempegowda International Airport's Terminal 2 at a cost of ₹5,000 crore and helped secure approval for 1,500 electric buses to enhance public transportation.
When the Mantri Serenity Apartment project in Bengaluru stalled due to funding shortages, he helped secure ₹900 crore from PM Modi's SWAMIH scheme, enabling 1,200 middle-class families to receive possession of their homes by 2022. He played a crucial part in promulgating amendments to the DICGC Act while advocating for distressed Guru Raghavendra Bank depositors during moratorium. These amendments brought cooperative banks under RBI supervision, increased deposit insurance to ₹5 lakh, and ensured timely payout within 90 days. As a result, more than 12,000 Guru Raghavendra Bank depositors received deposit insurance coverage, with ₹401 crore worth of deposits being disbursed as of 2021. A total of 753.61 crore was received by Guru Raghavendra Bank as deposit insurance towards 21,983 claims.
He also led delegations to address startup concerns and organised ministerial interactions to encourage Bengaluru's startup ecosystem, which now boasts over 24,000 startups. His advocacy caused SBI launched India's first dedicated startup branch in Koramangala, Bengaluru South, offering comprehensive services from startup formation to Initial Public Offerings.
Tejasvi Surya asked the highest number of questions and spent the most MPLADS funds of any of the four Bengaluru MPs in the 17 Lok Sabha, emerging as the best performing MP in an analysis by the Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC).
In March 2024, Surya was announced as the BJP candidate for the Bangalore South constituency in the 2024 general elections. A day before polls, on 25 April, a case was registered against him for "soliciting votes on the ground of religion", after he shared a video on his official Twitter account of the surya tilak on Rama, the deity in Ayodhya's Ram Mandir, with the caption"...For Bharatiyata to survive, vote for BJP!". He was booked under the section 123 (3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The Election Commission of India confirmed that it filed a case on his violation of the Model Code of Conduct.
In June 2024, he returned to Parliament for a second term by a margin of nearly 2.8 lakh votes. His nearest opponent was Soumya Reddy, former Congress MLA for Jayanagar in the Karnataka State Assembly and daughter of eight-time MLA, Ramalinga Reddy.
In his second term in Parliament, Surya has been appointed member of the Public Accounts Committee in addition to the standing Committees on Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Food Processing, and on Science and Technology, Environments, Forest and Climate Change.
Surya is a staunch advocate of Hindutva. He credits Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo, BR Ambedkar and Veer Savarkar with inspiring him and shaping his ideology of Hindutva. Surya is a vocal critic of socialism and "Nehruvian Socialism".
He attributed the Citizenship Amendment Act protests to be led by 'uneducated, illiterate, and puncture-wallahs'. Surya had previously said "If you are with Narendra Modi, you are with India", and claimed that those who did not support Modi were "strengthening anti-India forces".
On another occasion, he had said that the "BJP should unapologetically be a party for Hindus".
Surya's 2015 tweet quoting Tarek Fatah's sexual remarks on Arab women was criticised by Sanjay Jha and the citizens of Arab countries in April 2020.
In 2019, the Indian National Congress, an Indian political party, shared screenshots of tweets posted by a woman who alleged that Surya had abused her. Following this and the announcement of his Lok Sabha candidature, Surya obtained a temporary injunction against 49 media outlets and social media platforms, restraining them from publishing any "defamatory statements" against him. In April 2019, Surya was summoned by the Karnataka State Commission for Women for his alleged abuse of the woman, in addition to a tweet of his that opposed reservations for women (after Mahila Congress lodged complaint against him). The Commission later dropped the case at the request of the woman in question, who wrote that she and Surya were "good friends" and that the complaint against him by the Congress was "politically motivated".
On 5 May 2021, Surya along with his uncle L. A. Ravi Subramanya claimed to have unearthed a scam in BBMP's hospital bed allocation system for COVID-19 patients. He was criticised for reading out the names of only 17 out of the 204 employees in BBMP's COVID war room; all the employees he named were Muslim and Surya was accused of communalising the issue. A total of seven people involved in the scam were arrested by the police by 10 May, with Central Crime Branch officers stating that the accused had allegedly blocked real-time data entry to the Central Hospital Bed Management System hosted by the BBMP and allowed admissions of other patients to the hospital illegally. None of those arrested were the employees named by Surya. Later, he apologised to Muslim BBMP staffers by saying that "If anyone or any community is hurt emotionally by my visit, I apologise for that.”
In 2023, he opened the emergency exit of an IndiGo plane while the cabin crew was briefing about the passenger safety. He was made to aplogise for the action. As per Standard Operating Procedures, the incident was logged and the aircraft underwent mandatory engineering checks, which led to a delay in the flight's departure.
In 2024, he was booked along with editors of some Kannada news portals for spreading fake news linking a farmer's suicide to land disputes with Waqf board. The post was deleted by the MP later after Haveri district Superintendent of Police termed the news article as fake.