BY DILIP BOBB

Sorry State

Elections meant never having to say you are sorry. Mrs Gandhi shed nary a tear over the Emergency, Rajiv never apologised for Sri Lanka and V.P. Singh was never weepy over Mandal. Chandra Shekhar was something of an apology and Deve Gowda thinks the world owes him an apology. How times have changed. Apologies are being issued faster than manifestos and we can expect plenty more in the days ahead. Some possibilities:

Sitaram Kesri: Apologises for ever having had the temerity to appoint himself party president, for daring to decide on distribution of party tickets and for giving earlier hints that he could be a candidate for prime minister. Now that Lady Luck has smiled on the party, and thousands of voters at election meetings, he is now an old man in a hurry -- to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

A.B. Vajpayee: Apologises for letting his mask slip over the issue of the mosque, that there is no hidden agenda for other structures which have violated the BJP's building laws, and that the party will not Ram its earlier hardline policies down the electorate's throat. Says Muslims are his best friends and he has the RSS' permission to say so. Till after the elections, that is.

Sonia Gandhi: Says sorry for her late arrival at the party and for keeping everybody waiting. Also apologises for giving the impression that she was foreign to Indian politics and that she had left the family firm. Now that she is firmly back in the Congress saddle, she will make up for all those years of silence by speaking out -- in Kannada and Tamil and Gujarati and ...

Laloo Prasad Yadav: Apologises for not having become prime minister till now, even though the entire country was so looking forward to having a backward with his hands on the tiller. As opposed to all those rascals who had their hands on the till. Also advance apologies to all those candidates who are going to lose because he didn't campaign for them. Final apologies to Rabri Devi for not letting her say a single word in the last two years.

I.K. Gujral: Apologises for having become prime minister, for not releasing the Bofors names, for India having been unable to open the door to greatness, for having trusted Kesri, and Paswan, and Deve Gowda, and Nawaz Sharif, and Bill Clinton, and Saddam Hussein, and his astrologer, and his cronies at the India International Centre, and ...

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