Special: The Neta newsmakers

Priyank: like father like son

Simple and straightforward best describe  Chittapur MLA, Priyank Kharge. 

Only in his mid-thirties, Priyank, who is son of Union railway minister, M. Mallikarjuna Kharge, had a humbling debut in electoral politics, tasting defeat in the 2009 elections.

It was only four years later that he made it to the assembly in 2013 and the experience seems to have been life changing for him.

Greatly influenced by his illustrious father, who has carved a niche for himself in both state and Central politics and rarely skipped the legislature session during his 40 year stint as legislator, Priyank sits through the legislature session, attends meetings of committees that he is a member of and runs around the departments to get funds for his constituency.

Clearly not one to bask in the reflected glory of his father, he also takes party activity very seriously, even going to Delhi recently to work for it in the assembly elections there.

He  happens to be among the first generation Congress politicians in the country to contest the Karnataka Pradesh Youth Congress election following the trend set by AICC vice president, Rahul Gandhi who decided to put an end to the nomination culture in the party.

Considering his commitment and eagerness to learn the ropes, those who know him feel Priyank is a long race horse with an innate ability to adapt to situations and assert himself when required.

A crusader, feared by all

A social activist , who has brought some of the most influential politicians  to their knees, founder of Samaja Parivarthana Samudaya (SPS), S.R. Hiremath is a feared crusader against illegal mining in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. 

This whistleblower has successfully fought the bigwigs involved in illegal mining in the Supreme Court since 2009.

Admitting his Special Leave Petition, the court ordered an inquiry into illegal mining in the two states by its own Central Empowered Committee (CEC).

And soon former minister and mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy and four MLAs found themselves behind bars as the CBI began to investigate illegal mining.

Two additional chief secretaries and several top officials of Karnataka  found themselves in the dock as well.

Once Hiremath began to focus on corruption he rattled former Chief Minister B.S.Yeddyurappa and more recently Information Minister Santosh Lad , who had to resign from the Siddaramaiah Cabinet over accusations of involvement in illegal mining.

He has also taken on other political bigwigs like former Chief Minister S.M. Krishna and Congress leaders D.K. Shivakumar and Ramesh Kumar on the basis of documents that he claims show they are guilty of encroaching on government land.

While he has vowed to continue his fight against corruption and landgrabbers in future , he says he has no plans to enter politics and doesn’t intend to start his own political outfit on the lines of the Aam Aadmi Party that made waves in the recent Delhi elections.

The policeman’s cop

The government does not interfere in the functioning of the state’s police force, claims home minister K.J. George. 

“I realised that if we from the top are upright, the force will function efficiently. In the first meeting we had with them, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and I told the police officers that we do not expect anything from them other than performance. We promised not to interfere in their day to day affairs and we have kept  our word,” he said. As for  police transfers, he claimed they were delayed for various reasons.

“The Police Board had not met for many months and we reconstituted it before making the transfers. This was done in the most transparent way and by giving full powers to the board,” he added. Acknowledging the force was  short staffed, he said although there were 22,000 sanctioned posts, recruitment had not been done for many years.  “We have now begun the process of recruiting over 8500 policemen,” he assured.

While admitting that there were some black sheep among the police like in any other department, he refused to name any individual officer for lack of performance.

The minister also dwelt on the many problems  facing the department.

“First there was the  housing problem. We have now taken up construction of 8500 quarters. And as  special forces like the Anti-Naxal Force  lacked even basic facilities, we have set aside Rs 9 crore to build proper infrastructure for them in their base  camps. The government has also decided to introduce a canteen facility for police personnel on the lines of the Army,'” he disclosed.

George was happy with  the progress the government was making in negotiating with the Naxals.

“There are some mediators, who are holding talks with them.  Some of the Naxalites are willing to join the mainstream and we will be talking to the negotiators soon to work out the modalities,” he said.

Next: Man who remains ‘Mr clean’

Man who remains ‘Mr clean’

The  torture he underwent  at the High Grounds police station during the Emergency in the mid-seventies set his political course. Groomed by the RSS and Jan Sangh, Suresh Kumar did not change his politicial ideology like some of his contemporaries and worked his way up in the saffron outfits, finally becoming cabinet minister, handling law and parliamentary affairs and also BWSSB and urban development in the BJP  government in the state.

It was at his insistence that urban development bodies across the state began to adhere to a standard operating procedure for waste disposal and also streamlined water distribution.

Under the MLA Area Development Fund, Kumar set up a dialysis centre for the poor  and recently  visited a school in Tamil Nadu which runs an Honesty Shop. 

So impressed was he by children picking up things at the shop and dropping the exact money for them in a box without being told, that he is keen on Bangalore emulating TN’s example.

One of the few legislators who enjoys reading, the former BJP minister does not restrict himself to books based on party ideology, but is open to all sorts of work such as Ramachandra Guha’s  Gandhi before India.

A columnist with a newspaper, he recently appreciated the good work done by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Bihar, apparently earning  the displeasure of his party in the process. 

But his impartiality clearly placed Kumar in a different league as a politician.

Riding on ‘auto’ success

A decade ago he was familiar only to the media and the JD(S) with only five MLAs was tottering. 

But he remained loyal, travelling around Bangalore in an autorickshaw, organising party press conferences and collecting documents for party supremo and  former Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda.

Even critics of  the party could not help but  appreciate Y.S.V. Datta’s commitment to it,  but no one could have predicted his political growth.

When in the 2004  elections, the JD(S) made an impressive comeback to play kingmaker in the state, Datta was made MLC and since then has not looked back.

When hard times hit the JD(S) again in the 2008 elections, he was chosen to fight a by-election in his home constituency of Kadur and against all expectations lost by the narrowest of margins to the ruling BJP with all  resources at its disposal.

However, he could not be stopped in the 2013 general elections and won  by a margin of over 40,000 votes.

Caste has been no bar for Datta, although he is a Brahmin in a Vokkaliga dominated party. 

Taking many by surprise, he exhibited his oratory skills  in the legislature and with the JD(S) badly in need of such a leader he was made deputy leader of the JD(S)LP.

But even today he travels in an autorickshaw in Bangalore and leads a simple life, making him a politician with a difference even within the JD(S).

On a winning streak, always

His critics dubbed him arrogant when he was president of the Karnataka Pradesh Youth Congress Committee in 1997-98, but Dinesh Gundu Rao has come a long way since and is today considered one of the more dynamic ministers in the Siddaramaiah government, being in charge of food and civil supplies.

A young Congress politician, he contested his first Assembly polls in 1999, and has never looked back, successfully losing  the arrogant tag after becoming Bangalore District Congress Committee  president in 2012-13, when he handled senior leaders like S. M. Krishna, C. K. Jaffer Sharief, K. Rehman Khan, R. Roshan Baig and R. Ramalinga Reddy with deftness during the seat selection process, the biggest challenge for any district president during elections.

Neither succumbing to  pressure nor running away from  responsibility, he stood his ground without antagonising any of the senior leaders.

A qualified engineer in electronics from Bangalore he has worked for his success despite having a giant like former Chief Minister, the late R Gundu Rao, for a father, carefully building his career brick by brick and winning from the Gandhi Nagar assembly segment a record four times in a row, a feat no Congressman has been able to boast off  from this constituency. 

Of late he has added more feathers to his cap by  successfully launching the state government's flagship programmes like Anna Bhagya and is currently busy sorting out the APL and BPL card mess.