By P.T. Bopanna
As the Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge (in picture) celebrates his birthday on July 21, I wish to recall my association with him.
While I was working for The Times of India at Bengaluru, I was mostly assigned to cover Vidhana Soudha and legislature.
When legislature was in session, I used to bump into politicians at the legislature lounge where access was limited only to legislators/ministers and the media.
Unlike my media friends, I hardly cultivated the politicians. I interacted only with few politicians and Kharge was one among them.
Probably Kharge was bad at remembering names and invariably he used to address me thus: Hegiddira Ponnappa (how are you Ponnappa?). Sometimes, instead of Ponnappa, he used to refer to me as Bopaiah.
Apparently he was familiar with M.A. Ponnappa, sports journalist, Prajavani, Kannada daily. Though Ponnappa was a sports journalist, he was known to all the politicians because he cultivated their company.
Sometimes, Kharge used to address me as Bopaiah, who was the manager at Chowdaiah Hall, a cultural landmark, where Kharge was an office-bearer. Kharge was close to the late Bopaiah.
Talking of Kharge, he always had a ‘grouse’ against me. He used to tease me that while he spoke for almost two hours in the Assembly, I dismissed the coverage of his speech in ‘two paras’ in my paper.
More than hobnobbing with politicians, I used to cultivate the spokespersons of various political parties, who were rich source for news. They knew exactly what sort of news would make headline in a national level newspapers.
Among the spokespersons, I was close to Mohan Kondajji of Congress, Prakash Sesharaghavachar of BJP and YSV Dutta, who was once close to former prime minister Deve Gowda. Interestingly both Mohan and Prakash are now my friends on Facebook.
