BENGALURU: A late-night trunk call to New Delhi in November 1969 went on to define the political career of CK Jaffer Sharief. The eight-time MP from Karnataka, who carved a niche for himself as a Minister of State for Railways, started with humble beginnings. Hailing from an economically backward family from Chitradurga, Sharief’s tryst with politics began when he joined as an office assistant in former Chief Minister S Nijalingappa’s office. From doing odd jobs at a party office to connecting cities with the conversion of railway lines to broad gauge, Sharief went a long way.

Despite working closely with Nijalingappa, Sharief pledged his support to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi when the Congress split into two factions, one led by Gandhi which was referred to as “Indicate” and another by K Kamaraj referred to as “Syndicate”. 

Many contemporaries of Sharief even credit him with raising an alarm to alert Indira Gandhi when Syndicate faction leaders, including Nijalingappa, Kamaraj, Morarji Desai, decided to oust Indira Gandhi from the Congress party that eventually led to the split of the party. “He was a Congress party loyalist. People may criticise him without proper understanding but what he did was for the party,” said former Karnataka Chief Minister and current Congress MP Veerappa Moily. 

After joining Indira Gandhi’s Congress, Sharief was given a ticket to contest from Kanakapura constituency in the 1971 Lok Sabha polls as a mark of appreciation for his loyalty to Indira Gandhi. After registering a victory in his debut election, he shifted to Bengaluru North Constituency where he won consecutive till 1996 when he lost to C Narayanaswamy who was then with the JD(S). Sharief wrested the seat back in 1998 only to lose it again to HT Sangliana in 2004. After this defeat, Sharief’s political career never recovered. In fact, his last few years in the Congress were spent in disgruntlement. The loss of his son and wife in back-to-back election years, took a toll on Sharief’s public life, according to those close to the veteran leader.