•CITHARA PAUL: Has your perception of Indian politics, or rather, Indian politicians, changed after your Rajya Sabha experience?

My perception of politics was dictated a lot by what appeared in the media before 2006. I hated them as much as all of you. But I have met some of the finest, smartest thinkers after joining politics. And I am saying this not to give any carte blanche to politicians. People like Sharad Joshi. I didn’t even know about the caste system in the Muslim community. There is a gentleman called Ali Anwar from whom I learnt a lot about this. About Karnataka, for example, when I campaigned for my election, I used to hang around the Vidhan Sabha and I met people who can’t have a conversation in English but had wisdom and knowledge that made you humble. I continue to maintain today that my first day in Parliament was like going to school.

•VANDITA MISHRA: The general impression about Karnataka is it is a state where corruption or criminalisation of politics is not as serious a problem as let’s say it is in Uttar Pradesh. It’s not just a north-south divide that’s peculiar to Karnataka. What do you think that is?

I agree with you. I can tell you from first hand experience. I think that the political class in Karnataka — notwithstanding the bad press that Deve Gowda gets — at the end of the day is genuinely concerned about their constituency and they have worked very hard for it. And I have seen that even for MPs (from Karnataka, who are here in Delhi) that there is a whole work ethic for them. Now why it happens, I don’t know. Because there is definitely a trend in Karnataka, which I haven’t compared with other states, where MLAs repeat. Anti-incumbency in MLAs is lower. There are people in BJP today who were MLAs in Congress and so on. So obviously, there’s something they are doing right.

... contd.