A few weeks ago Karnataka's veteran politician Ramakrishna Hegde celebrated his 75th birthday. For those who had ruled him out of the Karnataka political scene and relegated him to history books, it was a pleasant surprise or an unpleasant one, depending on the party affiliations, to see him rising out of relative obscurity to literally paint the town red.

Just to indicate how Hegde always manages to bounce back and garner the limelight, his 75th birthday celebration was a huge party, the kind that would be envied by every 5-year old. Brought to the venue, Palace Grounds in a flower bedecked car, Hegde had national leaders flying in to take part, the most prominent being Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah. A couple of union ministers completed the picture. But the most surprising guest, and for Hegde probably a feather in the cap, was our very own CM S. M. Krishna. A clear indicator that Hegde's fans cut across all lines. The only sore thumb sticking out that day was BJP's peevishness in boycotting the function.

This just goes to show that despite his political rivals and the media, writing him off constantly, he manages to come back into the reckoning. It has been the story of his life. Born on August 29, 1927 at Doddamare in Siddapur taluk of Uttara Kannada district, Hegde launched full-scale into the freedom struggle to gain independence. His greatest inspiration lay at home in the form of his elder sister, elder by nearly 24 years, Mahadevi Thayi, who was already an ardent follower of Vinoba Bhave and Mahatma Gandhi.

In the heat of the independence struggle, Hegde was a staunch Congress worker in Uttara Kannada and grew up under the tutelage of the state's greatest political leaders. His 45-year old political career is a chequered one however and has seen many ups and downs. Hegde began gaining popularity after he left the Congress and joined the then Janata Party. Between being elected to the assembly and the Lok Sabha with stints in the Rajya Sabha thrown in, he earned the reputation of being a suave politician.

Hegde came into his own in the period following the emergency after 1977 and was instrumental in the formation of the Janata Party and later the Janata Dal. He reached the height of his popularity when he became chief minister of the state between 1983 and 1988 and put Karnataka firmly on the map of the country, before which the state was known just as one of the four South Indian states. Though he unleashed a series of reforms and gained the reputation of being a modern CM, controversies dogged his tenure and he did not repeat his CM feat. Among the allegations against him were tapping phones of opposition leaders and a massive land grabbing case.

His tenure was also marred by what is now called the `Hegde trick' - faced with insurmountable challenges he would submit his resignation and then withdraw it ostensibly in the wake of pressure from the party. This was also the time the rift between his arch rival H.D. Deve Gowda became even more intense.

Finally, after the JD lost elections in 1989, Hegde kept a low profile but continued to play an active role in state and national politics, trying his hand at the Lok Sabha now and again.

Meanwhile, Hegde also did a stint as union minister of commerce and later was chosen as the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. However, his popularity was becoming a thorn in the side of Gowda and he expelled him from the JD when he became Prime Minister.

Not the one to be cowed down, Hegde launched the "Lok Shakti" and inflicted considerable damage purely in terms of nuisance value. After the JD formally split again just before elections to the assembly in 1999, Lok Shakti has now merged with the JDU even as merger talks are underway to unite the two JD factions. It is unclear what exactly is in Hegde's mind, though he has been insisting that proper groundwork should be prepared to avoid similar splits henceforth. This time around, he seems to be playing his cards close to his chest, and the coming days will tell what his intentions really are. Suffice to say, he is not ready as yet to be written off.