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Put a cap on poll-emics

Two candidates belonging to two political parties talking of the coming General Election and how difficult life is being made for them, thanks to the Election Commission and its long list of do’s and don’ts which go to make up the model code of conduct.

Put a cap on poll-emics

ILLUSTRATION: SANDEEP JOSHI



Jug Suraiya

Two candidates belonging to two political parties talking of the coming General Election and how difficult life is being made for them, thanks to the Election Commission and its long list of do’s and don’ts which go to make up the model code of conduct.

1st candidate: It’s no fun contesting the election nowadays. You remember the good old days and the great times we used to have?

2nd candidate: You bet I remember.  There was this full-contact sport we used to play like kabbadi, only better called booth-capturing.    

1st candidate: Yes, what a lark that was. But then the spoilsport Election Commission went and got these EVMs, or whatever the darn things are called, and that put paid to booth-capturing.

2nd candidate: And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the EC went and put a cap on poll expenses, which in effect killed the ghoos that laid the golden votes for us.  

1st candidate: Too true.  How on the earth are we supposed to contest the election if we have to keep a hisaab of all bakshees we’re handing out to people to get them to vote for us?

2nd candidate: But even worse than the cap on poll expenses is the cap which, according to rumours, the EC is thinking of putting on the amount of gala-gali we can hurl at each other while on the campaign trail.

1st candidate: Really? A cap on gala-gali?  I didn’t know the EC was thinking of doing that.  How disastrous!

2nd candidate: Disastrous indeed.  What fun is an election with expletives deleted?  Or, if not totally deleted, capped so as to not exceed a certain limit.  I believe each of us candidates will be permitted to use only a strictly rationed number of epithets against each other, which could be as little as no more than a 100 per day.  

1st candidate: Only a 100 gala-gallis a day?  How is the deuce we supposed to fight an election without an unlimited supply of abusive ammo?  It’s like sending our armed forces off to the war without enough guns and bullets.

2nd candidate: That’s just it, you see.  Thanks to this threatened war with Pakistan, the pre-poll invective has reached unprecedented levels.

1st candidate: I get what you mean. Before the current face-off with Pakistan, we were restricted to calling each other incompetent, corrupt, crony-capitalist, pro-rich, anti-poor scamsters, which limited our vocabulary of vituperation.

2nd candidate: Right. But now thanks to the Pakistanis, we have started calling each other all the old names – incompetent, corrupt, crony-capitalist, blah, blah, blah – plus a whole lot of new names.

1st candidate: Yeah.  Like I could now call you a “poster boy for Pakistan”.  

2nd candidate: Exactly.  And in turn I could accuse you of politicising the use of surgical strikes against cross-border terror camps. 

1st candidate: Then I, in turn, could accuse you of subverting the morale of our defence forces by questioning the results of such strikes and so on.

2nd candidate: And on, and on.  That’s why the EC could be planning to put a cap on our unending exchange of pre-poll gali-gali.

1st candidate: But if we limit our gali-gali against each other, how else can we fight the election?

2nd candidate: Well, there is such a thing as body language.  And they do say that actions speak louder than words. 

1st candidate: You mean I should sock it to you, and you’ll sock it back to me?

2nd candidate: Bang on.

1st candidate: Wow.  I think this is going to be even more fun than booth capturing…

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