The Mallya makeover

Vijay Mallya, whatever you may think of him, is on a mission, albeit with his add-on friend Sanjay Khan in tow, his custom-built Mercedes Benz, virtually a wheeled work-space, satellite phone, a Pajero, two Land Cruisers, a Qualis, a Sumo (the Indian car, not the Japanese wrestler) and so on.

He flew into Bidar to start the 'Vijay rath yatra' in his Boeing 727 last Wednesday from Bangalore."I am not travelling in white Ambassadors," he wisecracks at the expense of dowdy Indian politicians. Only, Mallya is made of better stuff, his designer wear included. Even the most cynical were bemused, when in just one day on the Raichur-Koppel leg, he promised the Raichur district collector Rs6 million for pit wells, Rs1 million to the Princess Ezin Fatima junior college - "this is not from the Member Parliament Local Area Development Fund, it is from my heart" - and Rs200,000 to a dargah.

Muslim girls at Princess Ezin touched a chord in his heart singing Sare jaha se accha Hindustan hamara because one of the parties he loves to hate - the Bharatiya Janata Party - he thinks influenced people into thinking that "minorities" - a word he thinks is politically incorrect and prefers Indian Muslims - are rooting for Pakistan. Mallya want to re-define politics. "I have everything and I don't want anything from politics."

It is imperative people believe he is different from most Indian politicians. "Business is about management, organisation, money, performance. Politics is about these things too. The only difference is in business if you mismanage money, you go bank-rupt. In politics, nothing happens. There is no accountability."

On his hitting the road: "It started as a fact-finding mission, then tranformed into a membership drive and now into a wave."

For the sceptics, let it be said when he reached Hirehardinhal village enroute to Koppel at midnight, the entire village assembled to hear him. The man and the Janata Party, of which he became Working President recently, was a reality instantly.

Where does he get the confidence his party can unseat the Congress in Karnataka?

"I am told I have won 50 per cent of the battle because I got the symbol. And I have Ramakrishna Hegde's blessings."

Hegde, his political mentor, brought him into the Janata Dal (U).

Mallya resigned from there to join the Janata Dal (S) leader S.R. Bommai to form the All India Janata Dal, which he quit in April after accusing the party of "isolating" him and joined the Janata Party taking over as national working President. "When children fight, they rush to their mother" - is the analogy he uses to explain why he went to the Janata Party.

He regrets he lost a year trying to get JD leaders to stop bickering. At all meetings - on the road too- at the party office after inaugurating it, outside places of worship where he intentionally stopped, at schools, colleges; he drives home the same point.

The conditions made him 'tumba bejaru' (very upset.)

He is outraged over the Karnataka government intentions to spend millions to build a Vidhana Soudha (Council Hall) when "children and animals play in the same place in villages." After heading a business empire that includes several beverage monopolies outside India, turning around his empire which was sinking in some areas and frankly behaving unlike most other power grabbing Indian billionaires, is he really without ambition? "I have no ambition of becoming Chief Minister of Karnataka."

Press him for an answer considering he is the most visible face of a party in tatters in Karnataka and he is evasive. Maybe Mallya has more in the making.