Hegannahalli Narayana Shastry Ananth Kumar (22 July 1959 – 12 November 2018)[2] was an Indian politician affiliated with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

[7] Kumar joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1973 and took part in the movement started by Jayaprakash Narayan the following year.

[8][7] Ananth Kumar was a member of RSS' student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

It became the single largest party in the Legislative Assembly and won the majority number of Lok Sabha seats in 2004 in Karnataka.

[11] When Ananth Kumar was minister of Chemicals and fertilizers, he worked to reduce the prices of coronary stents that would help heart patients to an average benefit of close to a lakh.

[12][13] As the minister for chemicals and fertilizers, Kumar implemented 100% mandatory neem-coating of urea, in a move that was expected to save ₹ 6,500 crore annually in government subsidy or about ₹ 10,000 in total,[14] by stopping diversion for industrial usage, apart from additional benefit of slowing the release of nitrogen, thus reducing the overall consumption.

[17] He launched Suvidha – Bio-degradable & environment friendly sanitary pads at just ₹2.50 per piece from 5 June 2018, on the occasion of International women's day (8 Mar 2018).

[18] He launched an initiative to revive 6 closed fertilizer plants with over 48,000 cr investment, along with coal and oil & natural gas ministry.

[24] Ananth Kumar, Sushma Swaraj, M Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley were called "Delhi-4" or "D4" under the leadership of veteran L.K Advani, as they were based in Delhi and took care of various responsibilities in the party.

[27] When NDA did not have a sufficient majority, Shri Ananth Kumar had convinced the other legislators regarding the importance of GST (Goods and Services Tax) to launch the bill.

[41] He introduced Arogya Chetana Mediclaim group insurance facility for schoolchildren inaugurated by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.