Test ride both the bikes. Then decide.

What you heard about reliability/maintenance is because people pass on issues of old bikes to their friends and because of word of mouth, even before a product is launched by a company, you will hear that it is unreliable.

Bajaj bikes have been gradually getting better, and the latest ones are reliable and maintenance free. Keep in mind that both these things will depend a lot on
* proper service back up after your purchase
* how you treat/maintain the bike yourself.

If you take care of her, it will definitely take care of you.

Reliability is mostly brand centric and is evaluated over long time, Splendors never got tag of 'reliable bike' on day-1 but after several years, Unicorn became reliable quite recently, I feel P180 has not become reliable yet (compared to Honda/HH/Yamaha bikes)...just my opinion.

Generally, if build quality and reliability is not upto mark, maintainence and(or) cost of maintainence goes up.