Problems galore
A Congress candidate for the Lok Sabha election and his kin find themselves in a tight spot, because a brother of the contestant is very close to a minister of the ruling party. When the minister was handling an important department in the previous government, the candidate’s brother was dealing with his finances. The Congressman’s brother is again handling the sweetener that the minister receives from his present department. There are reports that the minister has advised his agent to do implicit campaigning for his brother. Now, the family members of the Congressman are brooding over how to canvass for him. The lack of party workers to stump for him is another problem the candidate is encountering. As leaders of his own party are not providing any assistance, he has to search for men to drum up support for him. There are reports that he plans to hire some people for it.
Ensnared again!
The Congress leaders may give any reason to justify former chief minister Digvijaya Singh’s entry in the poll fray. Yet the truth is that the party has Singh tangled up in the mess of election. Although Singh is a member of the Rajya Sabha, the party has asked him to join the poll battle for the second time since the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Then he was asked to take on the BJP candidate from Bhopal, which was not his chosen place. When Kamal Nath gave him a ticket from Bhopal, he expressed himself against it. He was not keen to contest the Lok Sabha election this time, too. He had begun to say even before the dates for the polls were declared, that he would keep away from battle for the ballot. Nevertheless, he is the only senior leader of the Congress, who has entered the battlefield. A leader of the MPCC has played an important role in tangling Singh up in the contest. It was the same person who told a senior leader of the party that only Singh or his son could pull off a win for the Congress in Rajgarh.
Extorting traders
A BJP candidate, immediately after getting a ticket for the Lok Sabha election, has begun to shake down the traders in his constituency for funding his election. He calls them up and demands brass from them. The way his agents ask for money indicates that they are forcing the businessmen to meet the candidate’s poll expenses. Such activities, should they have been limited within the peripheries of the candidate’s Lok Sabha constituency, would have been tolerable. But the candidate demands money even from those who live outside the borders of his political borough. The situation has come to such a pass that two traders, living in two districts outside the BJP candidate’s constituency, are on pins and needles whenever they receive phone calls from him. Yet they are scared of protesting. The amount of dough, collected by the politician so far, is thrice more than required to run for office. When a senior leader of the party’s state unit came to know of it, he advised the candidate against shaking down the traders for carrots.
The weathercock
The party-hoppers vacillate and gyrate as the weathercock does with the changing winds. A large number of members and leaders of a national party have defected to the rival camp, thinking that their outfit has lost its backbone and is unable to stand up to the ruling party’s onslaught. But they have become a cause of headache for an office-bearer of the ruling party. These party-hoppers daily visit his office to seek membership certificates. As hundreds of members of the national party have joined the rival camp, it is not possible to make such a huge number of membership certificates in a day and issue them. Another problem the office-bearer is facing is that the certificates need the signature of the party’s state unit president. The office-bearer, however, assured the new members that they should not worry about the certificates which, once ready, would be distributed among them. Meanwhile, to display their loyalty to the bosses of their newly adopted party, the defectors are sporting the BJP’s Bhagwa towel (Patta) around their neck. They will perhaps do so till the weathercock swings again.
Auspicious start
A senior bureaucrat has taken to religion, but there is no reason to believe that he has begun to perform rituals like a priest. Rather than doing so, he holds an online session every Sunday to render Hindu religious texts – written in Sanskrit – into English and Hindi to simplify those complex contents for the common man. Many people, including a few politicians, have begun to follow him, and their number is increasing. So, the chances of his becoming a self-styled holy person or a Baba after retirement look promising. He has an auspicious start.
Cross ex-boss
A senior leader of a national party is angry with its top bosses for unceremoniously removing him from an important position in the organisation in the state. He has a hard time forgiving and forgetting such a humiliation. The politician displayed his anger – though covertly – when his son together with him and other members of his family went to the collectorate of a district to file a nomination paper for the Lok Sabha election. His son is contesting the Lok Sabha election on a ticket given by the party. Two leaders of the outfit, holding important positions, also went there to boost the morale of the candidate. But to their surprise, the candidate went inside the collectorate with his father and family members, telling them both to stay out. Amazed at the senior leader’s conduct, both gave a vacant look at each other. Yet they did not leave the place – feeling humiliated as they were. They thought their leaving the place in a huff would convey a wrong message to the party men who are struggling for survival. So, they waited outside the collectorate till the formalities for filing the nomination paper were over.
