Poor darlings

Spare a thought for the babalog. Used to living in AC-comfort and spending their summers in the cool climes somewhere in vilayet, the children of politically famous parents are really feeling the burden of their legacy. With the temperature touching 45 degrees Celsius in most places in electorally-active India, many among these delicate darlings are falling ill. If the grapevine is to be believed, both the Nehru-Gandhi children have had their bouts of stomach infection and raging fever in the past two weeks. Apparently, doctors are accompanying Rahul Gandhi, who is still on medication. Sonia herself had to seek bed-rest for an entire day, after fever struck. Jatin Prasada, son of Jitendra Prasada, was forced to take a few days off after he hurt himself while campaigning in his Shahjanpur constituency. The foreign-educated son of Rajesh Pilot, Sachin Pilot, working hard to retain his father’s Dausa constituency, was down for days with fatigue. Jyotiraditya Scindia, who has undergone the grind before and is now contesting from Guna, still finds it difficult to acclimatize to the heat and dust. He recently cribbed to journalists about the complete lack of privacy, “I just don’t like this. My lifestyle is different. I want my evenings to myself”. And the kursi?

Shipped out

Our Union minister for shipping seems to be in dry dock. Shatrughan Sinha thinks he has been effectively sidelined in Bihar in favour of the information and broadcasting minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad. Shotgun has been upset for quite some time with recent developments — he was not consulted when Prasad constituted the censor board and made wives of film stars its members; and then he could do nothing to stop stars from campaigning for the party. The hardest blow came prior to the elections when Prasad was made convenor of the Bihar campaign committee. Which is why when Shatru was asked to go to Patna to campaign for CP Thakur together with Prasad, he promptly declined. “I will not be responsible if the party does badly in Bihar”. Even then, keep a lifeboat handy, Shatru.

Wrong place, wrong time

Should we call it a tactical mistake? The prime minister was dismayed at the thin crowd that came to his joint rally with LK Advani in Lucknow prior to the stampede. Yet at Lalji Tandon’s fateful congregation, with its bonus of saris, the crowd had been unmanageable. Tandon’s rivals in the party never tire of pointing this out to whoever is willing to listen, emphasizing Lalji’s ability to mobilize crowds, albeit in the “wrong places”. Unkind cut!

Another mistake

While the BJP goes about its media management with rare professionalism, the Congress is clueless as usual. When the party spokesman, Abhishek Singhvi, was recently asked how many Congress candidates were contesting in this phase of elections, he confessed that he had no idea. Far from getting busy with their homework, Congressmen tried to draw a parallel with a similar goof-up. When AK Antony was CM in Kerala, his men reached the house of Padmaja Karunakaran, daughter of K Karunakaran, for a survey. Padmaja was not there, but some others were. When Antony’s men asked who “Padmaja” was, the people at her house told them that they had no idea and had to ring up Karunakaran for the information. But that was a smart move to deny info to rivals. Wonder why Congressmen find it so difficult to live it down?

Same boring role

In Chindwara, the local police have a headache. The contest between the AICC gen-sec, Kamal Nath, and the Union minister for coal, Prahlad Patel, is not a happy one. There have been incidents of stone-throwing and firing already. Nath has been accorded Y-type security and Patel, Z-type. But that doesn’t help matters. Nath is mostly airborne during the campaign, and the helicopter has no place for the local policeman. Patel, meanwhile, has been using a motorcycle to project himself as a son of the soil, and obviously does not want a policeman to be his pillion-rider. Which means all that the men in khaki are left to do is keep a watch on the crowd during public meetings.

Pretty woman

When Priyanka Gandhi went to the Election Commission recently to complain against mom’s rival, Ashok Singh, and his goons, she made it a point to peep into each room, speak to the EC spokesman and praise him for doing his job. The Nirvachan Bhavan hasn’t been talking elections since then. Naturally.

We say goodbye

Our stars at the hustings have reportedly expressed their desire to collect their dues and head for Europe, and Govinda has already spoken of his dislike for white, his electoral attire. Tired, already, and with three more phases to go?

Doing a difficult job

Not many will disagree that with India’s several million-strong electorate, several lakhs of kilometres to watch over, mud-slinging and murderous politicos, the EC has an unenviable job in trying to manage the elections. So if it gets a little confused at times about discharging its responsibility, it is only acceptable. Take for instance its recent stricture on a pond in Nandurbar, Maharashtra, which has a lotus that blooms, for as long as anyone can remember, at this time of the year. The EC is reported to have ordered the archaeological department, which maintains the pond, to cover the lotus from public view so that it does not influence voters. Earlier, the EC had ordered the billboards on the PM’s Golden Quadrilateral project to be covered with cloth so that they did not attract too much public attention. It does not seem to have crossed the mind of anyone at Nirvachan Sadan that by doing so, the billboards would generate more publicity. We can only hope that its sense of duty does not push the EC into ordering the shrouding of statues of political figures in public places.