BANGALORE, Apr 18 : IT took five years for ‘super cop’ H T Sangliana to find that the BJP is “communal and anti-national,” before switching sides to the Congress on the floor of the House to nurture his political career.The Indo-US nuke deal gave him a perfect opportunity to “hop” onto the Congress bandwagon and Sangliana has been rewarded with a ticket to contest as the party candidate from the newlycarved out Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency. In fact, he was considered by the party high command by refusing the ticket to seasoned leader and former union minister C K Jaffer Sharief, whom the former Bangalore City Police Commissioner defeated in 2004 from Bangalore North LS constituency, on a BJP ticket.
Soon after his retirement from the police department, Sangliana - hailing from Mizoram - surprised everyone when he joined the BJP stating that he “was inspired by Atal Behari Vajpayee.” After making controversial statements like terming the BJP as Bharatiya Jesus Party, Sangliana could not gel with the local BJP leaders and started distancing himself from the rank and file within a few months after getting elected.
Now, as a Congress candidate, Sangliana has the Herculean task to first establish a rapport with the Congress workers and leaders and second to get re-elected.
Denial of ticket to Sharief in Bangalore Central could prove to be a thorn in the poll prospects of Sangliana. This apart, Sangliana’s earlier charges against former chief minister S M Krishna, when he was a BJP MP may boomerang on him. Sangliana had supported the now convicted, former ASP Sangram Singh, when Singh had levelled charges against Krishna and other Congress leaders, of allegedly accepting money from stamp paper racket kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi, to secure the release of Dr Rajkumar from the clutches of forest brigand Veerappan.
As a result, Krishna turned down the request of Sangliana to campaign for him. Bangalore Central has four Congress MLAs and four BJP MLAs, representing its eight Assembly segments.
But lack of necessary support by Cong ress MLAs has proved to be a handicap for Sangliana to some extent.
On the other hand, BJP candidate P C Mohan and JD(S) nominee B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan have been aggressively campaigning.
Known for his “honesty and integrity” during service, Sangliana is a poor match when it comes to spending money for the polls, vis-a-vis Khan and Mohan, who are established businessmen.
Other than money bags, Khan is depending on the goodwill that he enjoys among Muslim voters besides the huge Vokkaliga population in the constituency.
Khan had offered to stay out of the contest, if Sharief were to contest from Bangalore Central to avoid division of “secular votes.” This has turned out to be a boon in disguise for the JD(S) as Sharief himself is understood to have sent a message to the community to stand behind the proprietor of the National Travels.
Sangliana, however, expresses confidence of winning the constituency and is pinning hopes on the good work done by him as an MP in the previous term.
In fact, he is one of the few MPs from the state who judiciously utilised the MPLAD fund to take up development works in the constituency.
But his recent public support to “everything Christian,” seems to have taken a toll on his otherwise clean image. More than Mohan’s influence and image, BJP is hoping for a repeat of the 2004 results when its then candidate Sangliana surprised all by trouncing a senior leader Sharief. Then, the party managed to win because of the split in minority votes between the JD(S) which had fielded C M Ibrahim and Sharief.
This time, the saffron party is hoping a similar split in votes between Sangliana and Khan.
On the whole, the contest appears to be equally matched as Sangliana is set to get almost the full chunk of Christian votes, which are around 1.5 lakh, while Khan could bag nearly 80 to 90 per cent of the Muslim votes. BJP, on the other hand, is keeping its fingers crossed waiting for a split in the minority votes.
With no particular wave in anyone’s favour and the general disenchantment among the electorate, it has made it difficult and uncertain for all three main candidates who can never take victory for granted, until the last vote is counted.
