Whew!
The sparring and the name-calling is over. And at the end of all that 'breaking your arm' and 'cutting your head' speeches that we've endured in the last few weeks from our (yes, 'honourable') netas, I'm left feeling sick.
Maybe I haven't seen enough of the past 14 General Elections, but as gruesome speeches go, this election has certainly been like some mafia novel, live.
Amar, Akbar, Anthony
And at the very core of all this 'hand-cutting' and 'head-splitting,' are Amar, Akbar and Anthony. And I actually mean core - the Bangalore Central constituency. To many, this constituency has come to mean a remake of that Amitabh-Bachchan film. For, the candidates are PC Mohan (a Hindu) from the BJP, Zameer Ahmed Khan (a Muslim) from the JD(S) and HT Sangliana (a Christian) from the Congress.
It's an even fight and a tough fight. All three are strong contenders. Sangliana surprised everyone in the last election by defeating Congress' seven-time MP Jaffer Sharief. This time though, he's in a new constituency. Plus, with the JD(S) putting a minority candidate, there's every chance the votes will get split. But whether the BJP will gain enough to win is a different question.
It's always so exciting to know who will be the first among equals, like a cricket match that needs three runs off the last ball. You could hit a straight four and win. Or you could get run out while taking that third run. Only, here there's no chance of a draw.
Raaghu, the new 'anna'
If you want to know what the 'youth face' of the BJP is like, well, you must meet Yeddyurappa's son - B Y Raghavendra.
Those who know him are, first and foremost, worried about allowing him to meet the English media. Any media, for that matter. When I first met him, he was in Bangalore to launch the party's campaigning for the Lok Sabha two months back. That was after chasing the BJP media coordinators for more than a week to get an interview. At the time, he only said, "I'm sure...one lakh votes... win." What he meant was that he'd win with a margin of one lakh votes, not that he'd get one lakh votes. No, I'm not trying to judge him by his English but by his communication skills.
Sure, you can be a good leader even if you can't communicate well. But listen to this during an interview that went live on polling day. "Sir, people are criticising you for dynasty politics in BJP." "No... no... no dynasty politics here." (Please let's not judge him again... he is his father's son, but possibly didn't understand the word 'dynasty.') So then, "What will you do for Shimoga if you're elected?" "Development." Ok dude, I rest my case.
A few hours later, another journo was telling me his experience of talking to 'Raagh-anna,' as he is called. "We asked him why he was contesting... he had to be prompted by his aides every step of the way. And when we asked if he would fancy a ministry for himself if the NDA came to power, he almost said 'yes,' before being stopped just in time by his aide who asked him to say 'no, no.' I doubt he still realised the effect of what he said".
Well, if he had said 'yes,' you know what Ananth Kumar for one, would have thought.
But I can't help comparing this with the other son - Kumaranna, youngest prince of the Deve Gowda clan. We once asked him, "Do tell us about this project to start hardware parks in north Karnataka?" And he said, "We have money coming from the Centre under National Horticultural Mission..!" That anna didn't know the difference between a regular park and a hardware park.
How long will elections mean the tough choice of deciding who is worse? I want to see a time when we can decide who is better.
Joker of the pack
Sometimes, Venkaiah Naidu really comes across as the joker in the pack. Even some of the BJP media coordinators don't know what to make of his press conferences. Over the last one month, he's called a presser a week at least. Sometimes, to the horror of the journalist fraternity, he's called two or three a week.
We grit our teeth and go - because in the back of all our minds is that big 'IF.' What IF he says something major? What IF he gives us some big news?
But Naidu's last few pressers - and indeed, election speeches - have been like the proverbial empty kettle -- lots of sound and fury signifying nothing. "They object to Ram Sethu. They say where is Rama. Well, Rama is in Ramakrishna Hegde, Rama is in Seetharam Yechury, Rama is in Jairam Ramesh".
Ask him about the party's much-touted 'Operation Lotus' and he's ready with a wisecrack: "There is no Operation Lotus. Only Cooperation Lotus".
And on and on, in similar vein. Sometimes rhyming, sometimes alliterative, sometimes just plain getting-on-your-nerves. His latest about how the BJP was being blamed for everything that went wrong: "If your name is deleted from the voters' list, blame the BJP, if electoral rolls are wrong, the BJP, if Bangarappa gets hit with stones, the BJP. Tomorrow, if you don't have children, you'll blame the BJP."
It's become a joke even in the BJP ranks that he calls a press conference after reading the morning paper - and after giving himself at least two hours to shore up on PJs on what appeared in the paper. (Promise you, this is Naidu's own admission -- 'you only want headlines but I don't have any such deadlines, I only have lines.')
Well, Mr Naidu, maybe we need some laughter in these stressful times. But really, we're not all that amused. But as you like to point out so often, it's your presser, not ours!
How much is 8 crore?
No, just think logically -- how much is it?
About 20 days ago, the news from Bellary (the home of the Reddys and the mining mafia) was that 8 crore rupees were seized in a single operation.
At first glance, you can take it as a 'yet another election seizure.' But just visualise it this way -- that lone constable at some sleepy check-post who stops a van more out of boredom than anything else. He chats with the driver - maybe even shares a cigarette -- and then opens up the gaddi. And then he sees these currency notes.
Assuming they were 500-rupee notes, there'd have been 1.6 lakh notes. Assuming these were in bundles of 100 notes each, there'd have been 1,600 bundles of these notes. (I've never been good at math all through school, so pardon me if I've missed a zero here or there)
But think, ever seen that many currency notes in your life?
It just never ends
At least, that's what it seems like. It all started in late 2005. The ZP elections were so favourable to the Congress that the JD(S) felt insecure and decided to pull out - it wanted to crown its prince H D Kumaraswamy the chief minister.
Soon after, we saw by-elections in Chamundeshwari, with Siddramaiah winning another photo-finish with just over 200 votes. And then we saw Kumaranna pulling out support and forcing mid-term polls on Karnataka.
Barely had Yeddy formed a government that the BJP started 'Operation Lotus,' where it poached MLAs from other parties to consolidate its own power and forced eight by-elections on the state. That was just a couple of months ago.
Now we have voted for the Lok Sabha. And since no party wanted to care for bleeding Bangalore, they never bothered to hold the corporation elections for the last two years. Now the High Court has ordered the government to hold one within four months.
And soon after that, we'll have another set of by-elections because all parties have fielded their sitting MLAs in this Lok Sabha election - H D Kumaraswamy, Zameer Ahmed, C P Yogeshwar, Krishna Byre Gowda, Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli...(couldn't they find other candidates?) Inevitably, there'll be a mini-Assembly election with so many vacancies in the Assembly within the next six months. We just seem to go from election to election, don't we?
