The channel loved it. It kept repeating the footage and sought detailedcomment on the incident. BJP sympathisers and spokespersons insisted that toomuch should not be read into Rajnath’s reaction. It seems he had answered thatparticular non-question many times earlier and was greatly fed up.
Alas, the body language told an entirely different story. He could have said,"No comment" or come up with the standard evasion: "it is a hypotheticalquestion, Advaniji is our candidate in this election." He didn’t. Idon’t want to state the obvious -- that the BJP president’s response spokevolumes about the internal power struggle in the BJP -- but the camera does notlie.
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On Thursday morning, Mulayam Singh Yadav got into an ugly spat on camera withthe Election Commission observer in his constituency. He insisted on taking allhis Black Cat commandos into the polling booth. As per EC rules, a Z-category netacan take only one bodyguard into the booth. Surrounded by the media, theSamajwadi chief got into a prolonged slanging match with the EC observer andcame close to manhandling him. Fortunately, the official stood his ground andforced Mulayam Singh to abide by rules set by the Commission. You would havethought that a seasoned politician who has voted several times would havethought twice before trying to intimidate an EC official in front of the media.What is the moral?
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Tailpiece: Both the gentlemen I have mentioned above have majorelectoral problems and their irritability is in direct proportion to theirproblems. An angry neta in election 2009 suggests….
