|
|
METRO TODAY | DAILY NEWS | ASTROLOGY | ARCHIVES | INDIA TODAY | HOME |
|
|
KEY CONTESTS Duel PersonalitiesThe first two rounds of polling will witness some gladiatorial contests, voted for locally but watched nationally. BELLARY 1998 Results: Congress:38.5 per cent; Lok Shakti: 29.4 per cent; JD:25.3 per cent.With its stark conflicts between the rich and the poor, profiled against a landscape of green paddies and rocky wastelands, Bellary could be a miniaturised India. But it's not. Unlike in the rest of the country, the Congress has never lost the seat in the past 12 general elections. Muslims, Dalits, tribals and backwards -- the traditional Congress vote bank -- form 70 per cent of the electorate. However, the Congress vote-share is now dwindling, having lost 5 per cent since 1996. With its popularity on the falling side of the curve, the party is facing the 13th contest at Bellary by fielding its most precious candidate, Sonia Gandhi. The posters scream: Andhu Indira, indu Sonia ("Then Indira, now Sonia"). But Sushma Swaraj's emotional campaign in Hindi, interspersed with improvised Kannada, targets on Sonia's foreign origin to applauding crowds. She invariably ends with the question: What does Sonia have? As she herself replies, "Sonne, sonne, sonne (zero)", the audience is enthralled. Now they are waiting to hear Sonia's rebuttal. DELHI SADAR 1998 Results: BJP: 56.4 per cent; Congress: 40.2 per cent. Delhi Sadar, home to some of the capital's bustling bazaars, is now the duelling ring of two old rivals. Madan Lal Khurana, the older politician, is also the more acerbic. Forever reminding his audiences of Jagdish Tytler's alleged involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Khurana blusters, "That's why we'll get all the Sikh votes." At another corner in the maze of Sadar's bylanes, Tytler, surrounded by a posse of Black Cats, is shrill. He tells how the BJP leaders won from Delhi Sadar in the past but shifted to other constituencies. And how only he remained steadfast to Sadar in victory as much as in defeat. As the evening advances, the verbal battle gets more vicious. Bellows Khurana: "Doesn't Jagdish know a court's verdict does not remove blood stains from hands?" Close by Tytler squeaks, "I am taking Khurana to court before he can finish me with lies." The voters are amused. SRINAGAR 1998 Results: NC: 56.3 per cent; Congress: 28.7 per cent. Breaking away from the Congress with her father Mufti Mohammed Sayeed at the last moment, Mehbooba Mufti has brought a new vibrancy to the "progeny politics" in the city of tourists and terrorists. Omar Farooq Abdullah, son of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, could have rested on the laurel of his victory last year. But he can't. While Omar pleads for a stamp on the NC symbol, the plough, Mehbooba has cleverly chosen for her newly formed PDP the pen-and-ink-pot symbol which brings back memories of the infamous 1986 election, when the Muslim United Front had the same symbol. "The rigging then saw the youth pick up guns. I have the same symbol to see the return of peace," Mehbooba says. Omar attacks Mehbooba saying she can't provide jobs, "Who's the chief minister? Her father or my father?" But Mehbooba hits back, "What has his father done in three years as chief minister?" Alienated from the mainland, the electorate is sullen and may vote with its feet, as it did last year with a 30.06 per cent turnout. SOUTH DELHI 1998 Results: BJP: 58.2 per cent; Congress: 37.7 per cent. Economics is no longer the "dismal science" but there is a certain sobriety to the campaign of Manmohan Singh, India's most famous finance minister in living memory. In a constituency where rich colonies alternate with shanties, Singh's diffident style indicates his long experience in the seminar room. In sharp contrast Vijay Kumar Malhotra, elected from here 22 years ago, is all gusto and fiery oratory. The Congress is running a subliminal campaign that the good doctor may just become prime minister. With the label of an honest man and a reformer, Singh also hopes the well-heeled drawing room classes will not play truant from the polling station and back him. Malhotra hopes for a victory in the name of Vajpayee -- and good old-fashioned politics. BHOPAL 1998 Results: BJP: 56.6 per cent; Congress: 34.4 per cent. The shifting of Uma Bharati, the BJP's spunky sanyasin from Khajuraho to Bhopal is a mystery. It is compounded by resentment within the party's ranks in Bhopal, a constituency from where former party MP S.C. Verma won four successive terms. No one buys her explanation that she moved due to health reasons. Her Congress rival Suresh Pachauri, a Rajya Sabha member since 1984, calls Bharati an outsider. "I am a man from Bhopal," he says. Bharati retorts: "A sanyasin belongs to the entire universe." The voter is mystified. JALORE 1998 Results: Ind: 53per cent; BJP: 28.9 per cent; Congress: 10.8 per cent. Last year former home minister Buta Singh polled more votes than the BJP and the Congress in this reserved constituency as an independent candidate. Now as the Congress candidate, he is pitted against a BJP rival who, despite his Telugu roots, strikes a chord with the people with his one-liners in Marwari. Buta lost Jalore in the 1989 Ram wave. Laxman says Ram defeated him once, is baar Laxman harayega. Buta retorts, "After Ram, BJP is now cashing in on Laxman." No reason yet to lose his cool. HYDERABAD 1998 Results: MIM: 44 per cent; BJP: 37.5 per cent; Congress: 8.6 per cent; TDP: 6.9 per cent. In the capital of the Deccan, Salahuddin Owaisi has an aura of indestructibility, having won five successive Lok Sabha polls. But there is a reasonable doubt about his ability to 'hit the six'. The BJP's Reddy lost to him in 1991 and 1998, with the opposition to MIM split between him and others. Now Owaisi faces a united BJP-TDP onslaught, with a Congress candidate, however nondescript, still in the race. The MIM stronghold is in the Muslim-dominated old city while the outlying segments, including the rural areas of Ranga Reddy district, have long ceased to be receptive to Owaisi's nostalgic spiels, such as "we are the people who gave India the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort". Now Owaisi has updated his harangue, with gems like the charge of discrimination against former cricket captain Mohammed Azharuddin. But Reddy is upbeat because "winning here is arithmetic plus chemistry, and we have both in our alliance with the TDP". The MIM citadel is shaky. |
||||
| Top |
 BUSINESS TODAY | INDIA TODAY PLUS | COMPUTERS TODAY Write to us | Subscriptions | Advertise with
us |
