Pralhad Venkatesh Joshi (born 27 November 1962) is an Indian politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party who is Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and of New and Renewable Energy. He has represented Dharwad in northern Karnataka in the Lok Sabha since 2004. From 2019 to 2024 he was Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines, managing the government’s business in Parliament through some of its most contested legislation.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Pralhad Venkatesh Joshi |
| Born | 27 November 1962, Vijayapura, Karnataka, India |
| Age | 63 |
| Party | Bharatiya Janata Party |
| Constituency | Dharwad (Lok Sabha, since 2004) |
| Office | Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution; Minister of New and Renewable Energy (since June 2024) |
| Earlier office | Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines (2019–2024) |
| Education | K. S. Arts College, Hubballi (B.A.) |
| Spouse | Jyoti Joshi |
| Children | 3 daughters |
Early Life
Joshi was born in Vijayapura, then called Bijapur, and grew up in Hubballi, where his father worked for the railways. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as a boy. After a Bachelor of Arts degree he went into business in the city.
Political Career
He came to public notice in the early 1990s as a leader of the campaign to hoist the national flag at the Idgah Maidan in Hubballi, a ground whose ownership was disputed. The agitation, in which several people were killed in police firing in 1994, made northern Karnataka one of the BJP’s strongest areas in the south and produced a generation of its leaders in the state.
He was president of the party’s Dharwad district unit and won the Dharwad North Lok Sabha seat in 2004. After the constituency was redrawn he was elected from Dharwad in 2009, 2014, 2019 and 2024. He was general secretary and then, for about three years until 2016, president of the BJP in Karnataka, and he chaired the parliamentary standing committee on petroleum and natural gas.
Appointed to the Cabinet in May 2019, he was responsible for steering through Parliament the changes to Jammu and Kashmir’s status, the Citizenship Amendment Act, the three farm laws and their repeal, the criminal law codes and the women’s reservation amendment. The move to the new Parliament building in 2023 took place during his term, as did the suspension of a record number of opposition members that December. As coal minister he ended the state monopoly on selling coal by opening the sector to commercial mining through auctions that began in 2020, and coal output rose steadily towards a billion tonnes a year.
In June 2024 he was given two ministries. One runs the public distribution system that supplies free grain to about 80 crore people and manages buffer stocks to hold down food prices. The other oversees the country’s solar and wind expansion, including the rooftop solar scheme for one crore households; in 2025 India’s non-fossil sources crossed half of its installed power capacity.
Personal Life
He is married to Jyoti Joshi and they have three daughters. He remains closely tied to Hubballi-Dharwad, where he has pushed for rail, airport and industrial projects, and is regarded as one of the BJP’s principal leaders in Karnataka.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Pralhad Joshi born?
Pralhad Joshi was born on 27 November 1962 in Vijayapura, Karnataka, India and is 63 years old.
Featured image: Pralhad Joshi at a press conference on the commercial coal mine auctions, New Delhi, 9 November 2020. Photo by Ministry of Coal, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
