Let there be light, says Lalu

Kharagpur: An MP is a transformer ? not social, but electric ? and an MLA, a bulb. One cannot perform minus the other.

This was railway minister Lalu Prasad’s argument in favour of the RJD candidate here, Prem Chand Jha. “You have voted for Probodh Panda to make him an MP. Now if you don’t vote for my candidate, how will there be light?” he asked. Panda is the CPI Lok Sabha mem- ber from Midnapore. Lalu is a Left ally, but the CPI had opposed it in last year’s Bihar polls. The self-admitted joker, however, gave that a pass. “Yes, I am a joker. But I am also a jadugar (magician),” he said.

Cuff relief

Krishnagar: As three alleged offenders stood before police, an officer asked: “Any of you a candidate?” One of them stood out and the officer let him go. This is how the scene would have appeared on stage had the election drama been enacted with a pinch of humour. Naresh Chaki, Trinamul’s Chakdah candidate, had been named in an FIR filed by Nadia poll officials, whom he gheraoed on Monday protesting against the deletion of names from voter lists. Two of Chaki’s aides were held, but the officer spared him because he thought it would give him more publicity. The officer said: “His nature is to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

Women on top

Bankura: Another male domain has fallen and again for the good. In Bankura’s Ranibandh, about 250 km from Calcutta, more than half the 71,212 voters are women. That is how the gender ratio should be, but the normal is often rare. CPM nominee Debalina Hembram, the lone woman in the fray, is confident that the “fair” voters would see her through.