76 is the number of candidates with criminal cases pending against them—from the 248 analysed by National Election Watch—in the fifth phase of the UP assembly polls. Among the major parties, SP with 24 criminals, Cong with 14, BJP 13 and BSP 12 top the list.
"Jab hamne woh tasveer unko dikhayee, toh unke aansu phoot pade."
—Salman Khurshid, Congress
The Union law minister’s rally comments on Sonia Gandhi
crying after seeing the Batla House encounter photos
was quickly refuted by the Congress.
“Trinamool is like a mushroom, it springs up only in the rainy season.”
—Francisco Sardinha
the Congress working president in Goa
about the TMC which is debuting in the state.
Advertisement
Congress In The UP Assembly Since The ’90s
Uttar Pradesh
Videshi Babu
Guddu Raja, thirtysomething SP candidate from Lalitpur. In the rough-and-tumble of UP, he stands out as a just-so-suave candidate. He has a marketing degree from Australia and his uncle is standing against him on a Congress ticket. An SP-Congress alliance or contest?
Uttar Pradesh
Acting Classes
Actor-turned-neta Raja Bundela has fallen right in with the political groove. Being the small player among the big boys of politics, he’s done the smart thing to get the attention of Bundelkhandis. He’s produced some attention-grabbing campaigners. Among them are actor Om Puri, whose friendship with Bundela goes back to their NSD days, and singer Altaf Raja. But having got the stars, he was upset when he couldn’t hold a rally at Jhansi’s popular Ramlila ground. Instead, he was asked to shift the show to the police grounds, larger but less popular with the locals. Raja saw red, seeing it as another move to knock him down by a mulish administration. “This is the price one has to pay for being a small party demanding statehood for Bundelkhand. But I will not give up,” he says. Incidentally, his Bundelkhand Congress is in the fray for the first time. The more the merrier. Certainly, Altaf’s songs and Om’s Kakaji Kahen dialogues should pull in the crowds!
Advertisement
Uttar Pradesh
Eggstatic
An independent candidate from the Kalyanpur seat near Kanpur is seen distributing eggs at discounted rates to voters—Rs 4 eggs are going for Rs 2. Why, one may ask? Apparently, the wannabe netaji was told that with winter at its peak, voters are consuming eggs by the dozen and that the white marbles would be a sure-shot way to their hearts and minds. Blessed with such powers of analysis, the candidate struck a deal with a local poultry farm, bought eggs wholesale and started distributing. But not before pasting a small sticker with his name and symbol on the shell!
UP/Uttarakhand
Other Halves
Girdhari Lal Sahu is a lucky man. He has three wives who also have political ambitions spread from Uttarakhand to Uttar Pradesh. Sahu himself has several criminal cases against him, so is out of the game. But no matter, he has faithful wives. Wife No. 1 got a BSP ticket in UP, wife No. 3 contested as an independent from the Someshwar tehsil in Almora, Uttarakhand (reports say she played spoiler to both Congress and BJP). Squeezed in the middle, wife No. 2 did her bit to help her “sisters”—she was active in both the campaigns, first in Uttarakhand and then in UP. The model code of conduct may often be violated, but how’s this for a new model political family?
Advertisement
Uttar Pradesh
Ladies Special
Malni constituency in Jaunpur district is saying it for women. There’s been a five per cent increase in female voter turnout here. And it’s the four women candidates that make the Malni seat ‘special’. All four are from different backgrounds—one is seeking votes in the name of a jailed husband, another in the name of a murdered spouse, a third is playing up her Dalit roots. Thankfully, the fourth is more conventional, just depending on her party’s backing.
Goa
Hop, Skip...
The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, Goa’s oldest regional party which ruled the state for 16 years on the trot, has adroitly catapulted itself into an alliance with the BJP after being part of a Congress coalition for the last five years. All it took was for Ramakrishna Dhavalikar, a minister in the Digambar Kamat government, and his brother Deepak Dhavalikar, chairman of a state-owned corporation, to withdraw support and cross the floor into an alliance with the BJP. But wait, the buzz is if it’s still a hung assembly, the Dhavalikar brothers will pole-vault back to the Congress because they have a hush-hush understanding with Goa CM Kamat.