Suresh Angadi

Suresh Channabasappa Angadi (1 June 1955 – 23 September 2020) was an Indian politician who served as the Union Minister of State for Railways of India from 30 May 2019 to 23 September 2020. He was Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from 2004 to September 2020. He was a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party from Karnataka.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Belgaum for four consecutive terms starting in 2004 (14th Lok Sabha) and was reelected in 2009, 2014, and 2019. He never lost an election. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in commerce from the S.S.S. Samithi College of Commerce in Belgaum. He also then obtained his law degree from Raja Lakhamgouda Law College in Belgaum. As a minister, he approved the Suburban Commuter Rail project in Bangalore.

Some of the other projects advanced by Angadi as the Minister of State for Railways included the country's first private and the longest 'roll-on, roll-off' freight service for goods trucks along the 682 kilometre route between Bangalore and Solapur. As the Minister of State for Railways, he also introduced the direct recruitment examination to the railways in 2019, with over 4.7 million candidates appearing in the examination that was conducted in 15 languages. In 2019, he had also signed a MoU with the Confederation of Indian Industry to drive energy efficiency and pilot projects aimed at setting up net-zero buildings and mechanisms for sharing of energy management practices between the industry association and the Indian Railways. He had announced a call for 150 railway stations across the country to be green certified by 2020.

In his 16-month tenure as the Minister of State for Railways he was credited with introducing over 50 train services just in the South Western division alone. At the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown in India, he introduced special trains across states in India, including 31 pairs of special Rajdhani express trains and 254 pairs of special mail and express trains, aimed at enabling travel of migrant labour.

He also headed the Suresh Angadi Education Foundation, which runs educational institutions across Karnataka. Given the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions his body was not allowed to be transported to Belgaum and Angadi was buried as per the COVID-19 protocol in the Lingayat-Veerashaiva burial ground at Sector 24, Dwarka in Delhi.