Karnataka146;s highway man

When he landed in Bangalore in 1995 as a principal of the SAB engineering and construction group to create a consortium to build India8217;s first private expressway...

When he landed in Bangalore in 1995 as a principal of the SAB engineering and construction group to create a consortium to build India8217;s first private expressway and infrastructure project, Ashok Kheny was only an engineering expert tasked with building the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor.

A decade down the line, Kheny is managing director of the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise, the company tasked with the BMIC project, and the Rs 2,250 crore project is stuck in litigation, allegations of excess land acquisition and bureaucratic red tape with only a 42 km peripheral road achieving some sort of completion. But Kheny used this time to become a film actor, a film producer, and a semi-political activist.

Through the initial periods of controversy that dogged the BMIC project, especially a spat with former prime minister Devegowda, the NICE MD spun for himself an image of an indomitable figure for good governance.

8220;I have maintained my Indian citizenship despite living in USA for the last 35 years and after marrying an Italian American,8221; he frequently states to emphasise his 8216;dedication8217; towards India.

As the project ran into roadblocks, Kheny, however, launched a career in the film industry that includes an under-production Bollywood film Shaadi Ke After Effects that8217;s billed at nearly Rs 100 crore.

But this election season, the first in Karnataka since Devegowda grounded the BMIC project on allegations of excess land acquisition, Kheny has returned to campaigning for good governance8212;in what many see as a veiled attempt to ensure that the former PM is not in a position to call the shots on the project for another five years.

Kheny belongs to a family that held large tracts of land in the Kheny area of Bidar district in north Karnataka before the Land Reforms Act came into force. He lived for nearly 35 years in the United States after obtaining an electrical engineering degree from the Worcester Polytechnic in Massachusetts.

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The Karnataka government headed by Gowda had initially welcomed and invited Kheny to create the infrastructure project in his home state. However, with the value of land around Bangalore rising rapidly, politicians began looking at the BMIC project differently. Kheny, who belongs to the dominant Lingayat community in the northern part of Karnataka, began to be seen as an usurper of land in the name of the project belonging to the dominant southern Vokkaliga community to which Gowda also belongs.

With the BJP, which supported Kheny on the project, being identified with the Lingayat community, a member of the Kheny family is contesting the current polls on a BJP ticket from the family borough in Bidar. 8220;I am only requesting voters to vote for genuine leaders whose priority is the growth of the country,8221; Kheny said about his campaign in favour of 8220;national parties8221;.