Bangalore: It is a sweltering day in Bangalore, evidence of the garden city’s fading reputation for being blessed with balmy weather year round.
Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint
Surrounded by a bunch of enthusiastic, young supporters who ignore the sun beating down mercilessly, a balding, fast-talking man is shaking the hands of commuters waiting for a bus at the morning peak hour.
As a bus heading towards Dairy Circle—the entrance to an arterial road that houses technology powerhouses such as International Business Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp.—stops, he and his supporters hop in. Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar Gopinath, the man who pioneered low-cost air travel in India with his Air Deccan, is commuting by a humble public bus to court voters.
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Popularly known as Captain Gopi—an allusion to his days in the Indian Army many years ago—the entrepreneur is fighting election to the Lok Sabha from Bangalore South constituency as an independent candidate.
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Based on his experience in the aviation industry, Gopinath is depending on unconventional ambush marketing tactics. His campaign methods include travelling on buses, meeting people on their morning walks at parks and addressing techies at the gates of their campuses.
Once inside the bus, he goes around introducing himself and asking people whether they have registered to vote and explaining to them why it is important to do so. His young supporters, meanwhile, distribute flyers containing basic information about Gopinath to commuters.
At Dairy Circle, he wades into a small crowd of young techies, or technology professionals, heading to work and speaks earnestly about the need to elect someone who will fight communalism, casteism and corruption. He says he is their candidate to do it. Some say they have not even registered to vote. “I don’t have the time,” says one who lugs around a laptop bag. He refused to identify himself. Gopinath delivers a homily on why it is critical for young people to stand up and be counted.
“We can either keep criticizing that the system is not all right or do something about it,” Gopinath says. “We have to decide between choosing whether we want to be a part of the problem or the solution.”
There is some enthusiastic backing from some techies. Even as a curious crowd starts gathering around him, two security guards wade in and request Gopinath to move on.
Bangalore South is seen as a prestigious constituency because it has a large proportion of highly educated voters and a huge base of those who work in the information technology sector.
This constituency, with a cosmopolitan mix of voters, has been a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 1991. In May 2008, the BJP assumed office in Karnataka—the party’s first government in the state and in southern India.