During his Army days, Captain Brijesh Chowta, 42, served in the 8th Gorkha Rifles, the same regiment in which former Army chief Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, too, served. He was actively involved in counterinsurgency operations as part of the elite Ghatak team. When not busy with his official duties, Chowta, a self-confessed sports freak, played hockey and volleyball, an interest he has retained to this date. He also loves watching cricket and football.
Chowta left the Army to study management and then switched to politics. “I left the Army in 2011. The campaign to make Narendra Modi ji prime minister started in 2013. We started campaigning for him and I took up politics. I became the general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha,” he said.
Chowta comes from a family with a strong RSS background, but he was the first one in his immediate family to join active politics. He was serving as secretary of the Karnataka BJP when he was chosen to contest the Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha seat. He said women from his constituency even offered to pay his security deposit, which was quite a touching gesture for him. Chowta defeated his Congress rival by a margin of 1,49,208 votes.
Chowta has promised to bring more development to the region, known for its rich cultural history and also for its banking tradition. He has come out with a vision document―nine paths to turn his constituency into a developed area as part of the prime minister’s Viksit Bharat dream.