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Poll Mantra'04

Election bytes you won't find anywhere else

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Poll Mantra'04
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Double Speak
Arif Mohammed Khan
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After the Gujarat riots in March 2002

After joining the BJP in February 2004
"I have great faith in the leadership of Vajpayee.The NDA government will be able to restore peace and balance in society."

The Godfather Fires A Few Bedside Shots

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You cannot take politics out of Sharad Pawar’s system. Within days of surgery to remove a suspicious tumour in his left lower jaw, Pawar was back at his papers doing mental arithmetic at the Breach Candy hospital bed in Mumbai. He was advised to undergo surgery last week but put it off until after he had completed the joint rally with Congress president Sonia Gandhi at Solapur. "Imagine what all will be read into my absence, we cannot afford it at this stage," he had told his close aides.

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Surgery done, he is back in business. According to sources, this is what Pawar has been up to:

  • Monitoring nominations.
  • Keeping tabs on speeches by leaders of various parties.
  • Fine-tuning the alliances seat by seat.
  • Chalking out his campaign strategy post-April 15, when doctors have said he can resume his normal routine.

A welcome outcome of Pawar’s hospitalisation is the decline in inter-NCP feuds. Chhagan Bhujbal, outcast after the Telgi scam, is back in the reckoning with specific tasks allotted to him by Pawar himself. Other party workers have taken it as a challenge to keep the party flag up in Pawar’s absence.

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No Luck Now

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Strangely, the BJP targeted only the Congress and not the SP and BSP in its Lucknow rally. Vajpayee-Advani’s main line of attack was Sonia’s foreign origin. When asked why, senior BJP leader Kalraj Mishra said the meeting was about ‘Bharat Uday’, other issuesdidn’t matter. "This is a Lok Sabha election, our focus has to be on the main national Opposition which is the Congress," he claimed. But with a low turnout, there seemed not many takers for this line. Mulayam Singh Yadav lost no time in calling a press conference the next day and scoffing at the thin crowd: "It’ll take me just an hour to organise a meeting of that strength." So, are the BJP stars losing their shine in the 80-seat state? Local leaders have several explanations. BJP’s media incharge Vijay Pathak denied it was a rally. "As far as Lucknowites are concerned, voters mainly come from middle and upper class backgrounds, who prefer to watch such events on TV." Were that true, Advani & Co could have just visited TV studios rather than take on the 7,872 km journey on a rath.

Poll Bonanza

Sushil Shinde, CM, Maharashtra

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Preliminary investment of Rs 25,000 crore for underground metro in Mumbai; Rs 5,000 crore package for turning Dharavi slums into a township; task force to evaluate Vision Mumbai—to turn the city into another Shanghai; two-year-old ban lifted on government recruitment; Rs 18,000 crore central assistance sought for drought relief.

Raman Singh, CM, Chhattisgarh

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Has promised one Jersey cow to each tribal family; Chhattisgarh Amrit Yojana to provide two kg iodised salt at 25 paise per kg to all BPL families; Rs 500 employment dole to all class 12th pass unemployed boys and girls; farm loans waived—average waiver Rs 2,500 per farmer; government employees to get 3 per cent additional DA.

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Poll Vault

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Dread Of The Death Diktat

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Separatist rebels in the Northeast keep reminding everyone they don’t believe in the Indian Constitution or polls. Come elections, they work overtime in issuing threats to politicians and parties and call for their boycott. This time too, the Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) and the Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) have clamped a ban on the BJP and the Congress on poll-related activity. BYKL publicity chief L. Mangang has said his group’s ‘death sentence’ on state BJP president Thounaojam Chaoba in January stands. The Congress, part of CM Okram Ibodi Singh’s Secular Progressive Front, has drawn the RPF’s ire for its ‘failure’ to stop human rights abuse by security forces in Manipur. Congressmen organising public meetings for candidates have got threats of ‘severe punishment’.

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Plane Jane Works Best

Congress veteran K. Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja Venugopal, who is contesting from Mukundapuram in central Kerala, is learning to look less flamboyant these days. A PR agency has advised her to cut down on her make-up saying her gaudy looks may not go down well with the ordinary voters. And Padmaja has readily complied with PR firm Corporate Relations’ say-so. Less rouge and plain saris have lent her the woman-next-door image. A grandmother at 42, Padmaja has cast her armour of jewellery aside. Without the jingle and flutter about her, her image makeover is total. The PR firm’s chief V.V. Vinod says his team will be in the constituency, sending regular feedback to his client and doing up her personality so that voters take her seriously. And Karunakaran, who knows nothing beyond khadi for a uniform, is surely smiling at Padmaja’s more sedate look.

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Dubious Distinction

Madurai Police files a case of ‘attempt to murder’ against PMK leader S. Ramadoss and 23 others for their alleged attack on film star Rajnikant.

In Passing

Rajasthan bureaucrat R. Sharma is suspended under ‘violation of model code’ for putting CM Vasundhararaje’s picture in his office.

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