BANGALORE: Lok Sabha member and state president of the Samajwadi Party (SP) Sarekoppa Bangarappa has created a record in the history of Indian Parliament.
He has resigned his membership to the 14th Lok Sabha and the SP on Thursday to pave way for his joining the Congress.
Once his resignation is accepted he will become the first MP to resign twice and change three parties in the same term.
He got elected to the present term on a BJP ticket in 2004. In March 2005 he resigned the BJP as well as the Lok Sabha membership to join the Samajwadi Party. He got re-elected to the Lok Sabha in the by-election held in June 2005. Now he has resigned for the second time to join the Congress. It will be his fourth re-entry into the Congress in his over four decade long political career.
He contested his first election on a Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP) ticket in 1967. He joined the Congress in 1977 for the first time. In 1994 he formed Karnataka Congress Party coming out of the Congress. Within a year, he merged it with the Congress. Again he parted ways with the Congress to form his own political outfit Karnataka Vikasa Party in 1996.
In 1997 he once again joined the Congress for the third time.
After shifting his political loyalty to the BJP in 2004 and the Samajwadi Party in 2005, he is joining the Congress for the fourth time.
He appears to have lost his political sheen. Otherwise, going by his modus operandi, his political somersault should have been a great event for him as well as his followers and the preparations to join the Congress should have been over by this time with several rounds of meetings in different places. He used to party-hop after making preparations in a phased manner: First to spread a rumour that the party to which he would shift had been longing to take him in and had no other leader except Bangarappa to lead the party to victory in Karnataka, next to hold several rounds of meetings with his well-wishers and followers at different places to consult and convince them about how his party changing was essential for the country, then to join the party after a grand reception.
This time, all these steps are missing. It all started with Bangarappa himself visiting the residence of his love-hate friend Kagodu Thimmappa some months ago after a political debacle of his family in the Assembly election held early last year. Later, though belonging to a different party, he volunteered to campaign for the Congress in Karwar constituency during the recent by-election.
He waited for a meeting with AICC chief Sonia Gandhi. Now he has submitted his resignation even before getting an official green signal from the Congress.
arun@epmltd.com