The big fat Indian election

CM grounded!

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot pushed all limits in the state elections to ensure he was there for all Congress candidates, and not just for son Vaibhav who was making a political debut from the high-profile Jodhpur seat. While criss-crossing the state during one of his election tours, the CM had to face a piquant situation. One fine day, Gehlot’s VIP chopper had to be grounded by 4 pm as the pilot in charge had completed his due flying hours for the week and couldn’t overdo the hours under the aviation rules. The Chief Minister, who was addressing various public meetings, however, failed to meet his deadline. The VIP chopper waited for its guest until 4 pm and then took off without the CM! Gehlot had to travel by road to finish his pending rallies while the private chopper took its own course! — AT

Vote stealer

Beware! Your vote could be robbed right in front of you. In Faridabad’s Asavati village, a few women alleged that a BJP poll agent stole their vote when he pressed the button on the EVM on the pretext of helping them. Their allegations might not have attracted much attention had it not been for a video clip, substantiating their allegations, doing the rounds on social media. The Election Commission of India was forced to step in and order a repoll. Later, it ordered the transfer of DC, Faridabad. The accused, Giriraj Singh, was booked and arrested. That was prompt! — BST

EC silent, SC furious

Many complaints were filed from different quarters relating to violation of Model Code of Conduct but the Election Commission remained silent until the Supreme Court set a deadline for it to decide on these. Following the court’s directive, the EC became super active. On certain days, between the third and sixth phase of polls, it passed multiple orders. These  included debarring candidates from campaigning, issuing warnings and giving clean chits to senior leaders of some parties. Till now, the poll panel has issued nearly a dozen clean chits to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on complaints against them for their remarks during the course of campaigning across the country. — MR

Missing in action

At the Ghosi Lok Sabha seat in Mau district, voters could see hordes of people canvassing for the Mahagatbandhan candidate, Atul Rai, but the candidate himself is nowhere to be seen. The Mahagatbandhan leaders — BSP national president Mayawati and SP national president Akhilesh Yadav — held a massive rally here on May 15, asking voters to cast vote in favour of Rai, the absconding BSP contestant. But why is Rai missing from the scene? Well, a college student has registered a complaint of rape against him, and so he’s absconding to evade arrest. His party, though, is claiming that he has been framed. The voters here have a difficult decision to make. — SM

Candidate report card 

Most politicians tried to use highly emotive issues of sacrilege and the 1984 Anti-Sikh riots but the voters shunned divisive politics and sought development agenda to the dismay of candidates. Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, a former chief minister, slapped a person who asked her why the Congress government could not develop his village. In a similar situation, SAD’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal left in a huff saying she could not take questions now as she was busy campaigning. Even AAP’s Bhagwant Mann found it tough to answer the questions posed by the voters. In Anandpur Sahib, Punjab, several villagers put up hoardings outside the villages, asking candidates not to lure voters with intoxicants and urging them to answer three questions: why the culprits of sacrilege were not arrested; where were the promised jobs, and, where did the government manage to eradicate drug addiction.— RK

Tech’s the way 

The data provided by the Election Commission proved that apps like cVigil, Suvidha, Samadhan, Voter Helpline and PwD played a positive role. Political parties, candidates as well as voters used these extensively to make the electoral process participative and transparent. On cVigil app, the commission received more than 1,40,000 complaints of violations of Code of Conduct. More than 15 crore people downloaded the Voter Helpline App. The EC got two lakh applications for inclusion in the electoral rolls. Similarly, on the Samadhan app, which assists in addressing grievances, the EC got feedbacks from 12 crore people and through the Suvidha App, the poll panel granted more than 50,000 permissions for conducting meetings, rallies, etc. — MR

Singh is king 

The challenge politicians generally throw at their opponents during electioneering is for an open debate. The BJP candidate from Shahbad, Nayab Singh Saini (49) however, was challenged for a wrestling bout by his opponent, Nirmal Singh (66), of the Congress. To be fair, Saini asked for it as he taunted Singh, saying, “He is an old man. How much work can he do?” Singh immediately hit back, challenging Saini for a wrestling bout. “If he defeats me in wrestling, I will accept what he said and there will be no need of contesting the election,” he said. Apparently, Saini seems to have no intention of taking on the old man in a mud pit! — BST

Reward of age 

Amid the widespread mudslinging, it was heart-warming to see that everyone refrained from making any adverse remarks about octogenarian Virbhadra Singh, considering his age and stature. “His criticism and scolding is his way of showering his love on me and I take it as his blessings. It helps me grow in stature,” said Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, even though the veteran leader was quite harsh on him. Showing similar grace, CM Jai Ram Thakur also said Virbhadra is an elderly person, and so they do not feel bad about whatever he says. — PC

‘My paltu chachu’ 

This election missed Lalu Prasad Yadav’s rustic wit and sarcasm. However, his younger son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav tried to fill his shoes by taking potshots at his opponents the way Lalu would. Taking a dig at Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Tejashwi said: “My Paltu Chacha once promised he would turn into dust rather the joining hands with the BJP but he aligned with it. There is no person close to my Paltu Chacha whom he hasn’t cheated. I had watched a movie called Chachi 420 when I was a child. Now, I am watching live telecast of Chacha 420.” — JKS

Sportingly yours

Contesting from the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat, former actress Urmila Matondkar, who was parachuted into the fray by a desperate Congress, turned the spotlight on herself. No one was turned away — neither television reporters looking for sound bytes nor youngsters and housewives seeking selfies with the actress. One of the richest candidates from Maharashtra with Rs 68 crore assets, Matondkar jumped through open gutters in the slums of her constituency and gobbled the spicy vada-pav from a street vendor without breaking into a sweat. At one point, some children from the Kajupada slums in Borivli rushed to shake her hands and even got her to sing ‘Lakdi ki kathi, kathi pe ghoda’, from her film Masoom, in which she had starred nearly 40 years back. The video went viral on social media. — SK

Clan bowled

The run-up to the Lok Sabha elections had leaders of the Maharashtra BJP unit rubbing their hands in glee. A bitter family feud in the household of Sharad Pawar was said to be tearing the Nationalist Congress party apart. Pawar’s nephew Parth, a political greenhorn, was keen on contesting from Maval. Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule was already set to defend her Baramati Lok Sabha seat. The Maratha warlord announced that he would not contest from Madha.Sharad Pawar, the BJP leaders crowed, was clan bowled by his own warring clan. “Pawar has become too old now and cannot control the ambitions of his relatives,” a senior BJP leader said. But as they say, blood is thicker than water. In the end, the entire Pawar clan came together to campaign for Parth, who was making his political debut.  — RK

Give and take

One fine day, two strangers turned up at the residence of Dushyant Chautala, Jannayak Janta Party’s candidate from the prestigious Hisar seat. It turned out they were close aides of Bhavya Bishnoi, the Congress candidate challenging Chautala, and were out to seek votes for Bishnoi. Now, one would have expected them to beat a hasty retreat on learning where they had landed, but they decided to meet Chautala anyway and, believe it or not, seek his vote for Bishnoi.  To his credit, Chautala met them warmly and even agreed to cast his vote for his opponent. But how could a politician allow a vote to slip out of his hands, that too his own? So, he quickly asked for a vote in return and made one of them promise to vote for him, not Bishnoi. Well played, Dushyant Chautala. — DD

The forgotten slap 

The Lok Sabha electioneering in Gujarat was, by and large, peaceful and free of unsavoury incidents, except perhaps for the slapping of the young Patel leader and Congress campaigner Hardik Patel at an election meeting in Surendranagar district in the Saurashtra region. The culprit was a die-hard BJP sympathiser but the ruling party quickly distanced itself from the incident. But once the polling was over, the slapping incident seems to have been forgotten. Hardik had filed a police complaint and the man was taken into protective custody, but nothing further happened. The state Congress and Hardik himself do not seem to be taking any more interest since the political fallout of the unfortunate incident has already been sealed in the EVMs and will be known only on May 23. — MD

Baan vs Khan 

With the Shiv Sena’s sitting MP Chandrakant Khaire facing a tough battle at the Aurangabad seat, party chief Uddhav Thackeray could not resist digging up some ghosts of the past. With AIMIM leader Assaduddin Owaisi campaigning aggressively and consolidating the Muslim vote for the party’s candidate Imtiaz Jaleel, Thackeray harked back to the days when the constituency was part of the erstwhile Hyderabad state. The Shiv Sena chief spoke about the brutalities on Hindus by the Razakars, a private militia owing allegiance to the Nizam who wanted to stay independent from both India and Pakistan. Shiv Sena workers went around asking voters to choose between ‘Baan’ (Shiv Sena’s symbol of bow and arrow) and ‘Khan’, a reference to AIMIM candidate Imtiaz Jaleel. — SK

Minister and a chaiwala 

Babul Supriyo is popular in his “para” (neighbourhood) in Asansol (West Bengal).  He takes out time to play badminton with the youth of his neighbourhood, and have tea regularly from a ramshackle tea shop run by a youth named Joy Sharma. The minister lives here with his family and has a fully equipped kitchen in his house but his first cup of tea in the morning before he hits the road for campaigning comes from Joy’s shop. Joy shares an excellent rapport with the minister but he never asks him for any favour. Supriyo respects Joy for this, and maybe having a chai regularly from his shop is his way of showing it.— SC

Vote for the rich...

South India saw quite a few interesting contests with some of the richest candidates in the fray coming from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. With family assets worth Rs 895 crore, Konda Vishweshwer Reddy is the Congress party’s richest candidate in Telangana. Contesting from the Chevella segment, Konda has personal assets of Rs 367 crore. “One reason why we want to vote for him is that being so rich, he will not indulge in corruption” was a common response of the voters in the constituency. Konda, son-in-law of the Apollo Hospitals chairman, Prathap C Reddy, is an engineer and entrepreneur and has several patents and copyrights in India and abroad. One hopes he lives up to the expectations of the people. — NG

Behind the veil

Olympian Krishna Poonia made it her major poll plank  that she was the first woman to be contesting from the newly carved out Jaipur rural constituency. Congress candidate Poonia is pitted against another Olympian, shooting gold medalist and sitting Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Facing a tough challenge, Poonia decided to play on the female voters of the constituency, who still wear veil when in public. Poonia’s team came up with this catchy slogan to get the women to come out and vote for her in large numbers. “Le ghoonghat ki oat, de Krishna ko vote” played on jukeboxes wherever Poonia went to canvas. BJP strategists were quick to pick on the slogan’s stereotypical nuance. But women of the area were quite happy to be goaded to come out, veiled and vote. — AT

Robinhood of Rajasthan

The Nagaur Lok Sabha segment presented an interesting contest this time. It was the only seat in Rajasthan’s 25 segments where the BJP did not field its own candidate. Instead, it backed a prominent Jat leader Hanuman Beniwal, who had split from the saffron ranks to form his own party. Facing Beniwal was former Congress MP Jyoti Mirdha. But Beniwal’s rallies resonated with much more energy than Mirdha’s. Reason: Beniwal’s reputation across the state as the “saviour of the poor”. Even Beniwal’s opponents privately said he had a Robinhood-like image and was known to come to people’s rescue in times of crisis. A prominent pro-Beniwal slogan in his rallies summed up the mood of the locals. It went “Pehle Bhagwan, uske baad Hanuman”. — AT

Farmers enter the fray 

Telangana saw a novel protest this elections with over 200 farmers filing nominations from Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency to contest against Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s daughter and sitting MP K Kavitha. They entered the fray to protest the failure of the state and Central governments to ensure better remuneratiion for their produce and for the government’s failure to set up a Turmeric Board. About 50 of these farmers from Telangana also filed nominations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi. Their common refrain was: “The contest is not to win, but to tell the politicians if they do not deliver, next time there can be a commonly supported candidate against the promise breakers.” — NG

Friendly fire 

Congress’ star campaigner and former CM Virbhadra Singh (84) went about making adverse comments about his own party candidates. He was supposed to seek votes for them but he ended up criticising many of them, leaving the voters amused. Like always, former state Congress president Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu remained the prime target of his criticism. At a rally in Hamirpur, he said party had been cleansed after the removal of Sukhu as Congress president. “Virbhadra ji is campaigning for the BJP by making such negative comments about Congress candidates, so we are obviously happy,” remarked former CM Shanta Kumar.  — PC

Mayajaal 

 BSP supremo Mayawati was playing the kingmaker, thundering against the saffron party in the hinterlands of Morena. Amid all this, it was alleged that she had “suddenly replaced” the party’s candidate Ramlakhan Singh, a Thakur who had the potential to spoil the chances of  BJP candidate Narendra Singh Tomar, at the behest of the BJP. In these parts of Madhya Pradesh adjoining Uttar