It’s difficult to judge whether the poll heat or the summer heat is singeing. The sacred duty of all the politicians in maintaining state secrets seems to be blown to winds. No, it’s neither about severe matters like our newer satellite destroying missiles nor the PM addressing poll meetings at Varanasi, but targeting Mamata in West Bengal.
You guessed it right, it’s about a not-so-sweet secret between a deft-tight-rope-walking Didi sending seasonal sweets and kurtas to PM Modi while maintaining an aggressive posture against him and BJP in public. That to me is fine, as the sweet business is the traditional Bengali courtesy and the sour relationship with the Centre, no matter who’s ruling at the state, or who at the Centre, is an attitudinal defect of Bengal. A fuming Didi has promised to send clayey Rosogollas or pebbles henceforth. Is it an admission of Modi’s return, or am I reading too much of the fine prints, missing out the main headlines?
There are also unsavoury trolls on the social media that it’s Didi alone who knows the size of Modi’s Kurta. I guess they forgot the entire nation knows that it’s 56 inches! Could it be true that 56 inches were intentionally sent to tease the PM? If it is true, I now see why the WWE wrestler the Great Khali has come to the rescue, campaigning for BJP and ensuring that the kurtas are put to good use.
Be that as it may, the former and eternally disgruntled Shatrughan Sinha made a gaffe, claiming Jinnah and Congress party are like same families and the media sweating from the sweltering son made a beeline to his office. There has never been so much crowd even in the film stars poll meetings, as the gleeful Press jostled for an explanation and re-confirmation of his Jinnah remark. The unperturbed, switcher may have wished to announce with his characteristic twitch that it was not Jinnah but Munna. His bewildered poll-managers hurried to think of some Muslim name and rescued him with the name of Abdul Kalam, which again was a faux pas, as the President was not a Congressman and Congress did not propose him for the Presidency during the second term. The name of Abul Kalam Azad was instead finally settled as what the actor intended to say, which he stated without batting an eyelid, notwithstanding his mostly shut eyes, anytime he speaks.
As the days advance, and looking at the crowd swell at Modi’s meetings, it seems that the PM is consolidating and moving ahead with his march to a comfortable win. It may not be a matter of comfort for Bengal, where Didi now has branded Modi as a ‘rioter.’ It seems that the distance and personal chemistry between the two leaders have drifted too far away from each other, for a rapprochement any time too soon, regardless of the poll results.
Poor Mani Shankar Iyer seems to have been kept under lock, and the hungry media has been missing his usual acerbic tongue for quite some time. Soon the social media was unabashedly active with fake stories that the politician has been killed in Balakot, while he was hobnobbing with the terrorists and that an embarrassed Congress is unable to admit his killing. How lowly could we have become in spreading such stories? A TV picture of his recently being present in one place or other silenced rumour-mongers. He being an Iyer has no influence on this part of the post of mine, in this caste-driven country.
The juggernaut called democracy moves on for the balance phases of polling even as the EC seems to be in a slumber, or on sabbatical!
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide voix