Sept 27, 1999

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India may be witnessing its first presidential-style election with A B Vajpayee and Sonia slugging it out for the top post.  But many regional satraps are barnstorming the countryside to win the handful of MPs who could turn them into kingmakers.

SHARAD PAWAR, NCP
Rebellion in His Blood

You could say it runs in the family. Way back in 1831, Dhara Rao Pawar led a hugely popular rebellion from Satara's Nandwal village against Dalhousie's diktat to bring down the Satara kingdom. More than a century and a half later, his great-great grandson Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar raised the banner of revolt against another "foreigner" to form the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Is this hereditary? Pawar chuckles: "Maybe. But it isn't a bad thing, is it?"

Pawar has other reasons to chuckle too. For more than a month now, the wily Maratha has been on the move, hopping across Maharashtra at a gruelling pace of 10 to 12 meetings a day. In the last two weeks alone, he has travelled over 14,000 km -- -- by a Bell chopper or driving through the Sahyadaris in his Landcruiser. Such is his knowledge of the state that each time the pilot fails to spot a meeting venue, Captain Pawar, map in hand, dons the headphones and guides the chopper accurately. On terra firma, he often directs his poll managers to take routes that even local candidates are unaware of.

His speeches are mostly in conversation mode. "What did the Sena-BJP alliance do for you?" he asks his audience and then proceeds to answer himself. "Nothing." Then follow the barbs. "They did take one good decision though -- -- to dissolve the Assembly six months ahead of schedule." He does not spare his ex-colleagues in the Congress either. "It took us 150 years to drive out the foreigners. Now the Congress is telling us that in a country of 100 crore, they can't find a bhumiputra."

It's not just words. There is plenty of style too. His shirt pocket always sports a clock, the NCP election symbol. Every time he arrives at a meeting venue, Pawar taps his slim Omega and the crowd responds: "Ghadiyal." Exhorts Pawar, "Vote for the ghadiyal. Remember ghadi chukli, tar peedi padli (if you miss this opportunity the entire generation will suffer)."

Such is his confidence about the assembly results that he does not talk about winning. He speaks of what the next government should do. "I want to push youngsters into the government. We should have people with vision." What if he fails? "Not possible." What if the NCP doesn't make it? "I love being with people, getting to know them and their problems. I will be back among them." He doesn't quite say it but the man who has made so many comebacks will then wait for the next one.

-Uday Mahurkar

MULAYAM SINGH YADAV, SP
Crumbling Bastion

Even while wooing them, politicians are known to keep voters waiting. Mulayam Singh Yadav perhaps is an exception. At Sieanna, a dusty village 20 kms from Bulandshahr town in western Uttar Pradesh, locals were surprised when the chopper carrying the SP chief landed at the exhibition ground 45 minutes ahead of schedule. Such punctuality has its perils: the crowds are yet to gather. But Mulayam does not mind. He knows they will come. The venue has been chosen deliberately. Sieanna is a part of a cluster of villages where the Muslim presence is overwhelming. Till a few months back, he was the main beneficiary of the minority votes, but his refusal to back a Sonia Gandhi-led Congress government has resulted in some of that goodwill disappearing.

That change is reflected in his speeches. In the past, his ire was reserved for the BJP, but with the Congress chipping away at his vote bank, some of it is now aimed at Sonia's party. "Who opened the locks of the Babri Masjid? Who got the idols replaced? Who gave permission for the Shilanyas? Who was in power when the masjid was razed?" Evidently pleased with the response, he takes his argument a step further, accusing the Hindu leadership of the Congress for being as much responsible for the partition of the country as M.A. Jinnah.

The arguments are much the same in nearby Aligarh and Khurja, though facts become a casualty as the level of rhetoric rises. "Dont waste your vote by stamping for the Congress. They have only 3 per cent of the votes. I have 29 per cent and if you support me, I will win 60 seats. We can not only stop the BJP in its tracks but determine who will be the prime minister." Meeting over, Mulayam heads towards his chopper. On seeing the crowds gaping at the sleek machine, he exhorts his party colleagues to organise his future meetings in bigger arenas. "I am drawing bigger crowds than Sonia and Vajpayee." Mulayam knows how never to let facts stands in the way when he is on to a good thing.

-Javed Ansari

MAMATA BANERJEE, Trinamool Congress
Candid Candidate

If life was only about attracting attention, Mamata Banerjee would have ruled the world. One of the several ways she has tried to do this in the past, is by "attempting" to hang herself in public. But it is evident in the small hamlet of Chachol, in north Bengal's Raigunj constituency, that everyone knows the attempt failed. A traffic jam of cycles blocks all vehicles on the road to the meeting ground. Conversation centres on what she will do next.

Mamata knows. She will address another rally at Raigunj town at six in the evening, make her way back to Malda by nine to address another one, and then drive through the night to Bolpur to campaign against veteran Marxist Somnath Chatterjee, whom she defeated from Jadavpur 15 years ago in what was one of the biggest upsets ever in West Bengal politics. That's what the Congress thought as well, when she formed the Trinamool Congress a year and a half ago. It wasn't a bad debut: 24 per cent of the vote, 7 seats out of 42, recognition as a state party. It took some doing. She says she has done 20 lakh km in West Bengal in all. And this time, in rubber slippers and saris that never cost more than Rs 150, she will cover all 42 constituencies. "I drew the symbol (the twin flowers) for the election commissioner in his office," says Banerjee.

It's that appearance of spontaneity that she tries to bring to her campaign as well. At each meeting she holds up a weathered plywood symbol to the audience, and goes on endlessly with trisyllabic (there are three petals on each flower) doggerels on every issue under the sun. For instance, on Trinamool's tolerance of Christianity, "God is great. God is good."

The rhymes aren't clever, but they are incidental. "The idea is for the people to see our symbol for as long as possible," says Banerjee. There's a paradox she has to deal with, though. Whatever she holds up, it is her that the crowd sees. To many she's the biggest symbol of all. It's also the symbol to watch out for in the West Bengal assembly elections of 2001. As Mamata so often says, "This is just the semi-final."

-Avirook Sen

LALOO PRASAD YADAV, RJD
The Lone Rider

Even in the heat of an electoral battle, Laloo Prasad Yadav does not forget his daily massage. A row of the state's top IAS officers stand in attention clutching their files. In between getting massaged, Laloo checks each file before wife Rabri Devi, chief minister of the country's second most populous state, affixes her signature. It is impossible to ignore the comedy of Laloo's establishment.

But as the political opposition against him gets more formidable, Laloo's rhetoric for poll '99 is more solemn, the jokes fewer. "Ya to garib rahega ya amir. Ye chunau nahin rann hai (Either the poor will survive or the rich. This is not an election but war)," he tells his audience. The pitch: I am the messiah of the poor who has given you a voice. The BJP-Janata "Jantu (animal)" Dal is a gang of vested interests -- "woh air condition wale hai".

It's easy to see why Laloo has such a rapport with the people. He is one of them. In an age of high security, Laloo mingles in the crowd without a care. When the crowd chants "Laloo kaka zindabad", he laughs. "Humra umar bada diya. Pehle hum Laloo bhaiyya tha (They've increased my age. Earlier I was their brother)." When he sights an elephant, Laloo steps down from his Garib Chetna Rath, climbs atop the animal and raises a lantern (the Rashtriya Janata Dal election symbol). The crowd is ecstatic. Laloo tells his audience how the government allowed Pakistan to penetrate Indian territory at Kargil -- -- "Sarkar haari hai. Desh bahut khatre me hai (The government has lost, the country is in danger)." After nearly a decade at the helm of affairs in the state, Laloo still remains the pivot around whom Bihar's politics revolves.

At numerous roadside meetings en route, he heaps the choicest abuses on his former Janata mates who have joined the BJP-led alliance. "Sab mara hua log hai. Atma nikal gaya. Body reh gaya (They are all dead people. They are just bodies without souls)." Brave words, but as he fights his last electoral battle of the millennium Laloo Yadav cuts a lonely figure.

-Saba Naqvi Bhaumik

MAYAWATI, BSP
Subaltern Queen

Mayawati seems a fairly ordinary orator; or maybe it's just that she's making a conscious effort at being polite. The imperiousness hasn't been entirely effaced though. She waves to the crowd in a manner of Caesar at a triumph. The shiny salwar suit, the gold chain, ear studs, bangles, nose rings, the "I don't smile more than once every meeting" look are all in place. Having made the mandatory references to how the BSP is accommodating even the upper castes and OBCs, she gets down to a brief Dalit history of modern India: "The BSP is not jatiwadi , the ancestors of manuwadis created jatiwad." She stops to scratch herself, making you wonder if this too is a political statement, before she turns to the Congress years of "zulm" -- to 1952, when Babasaheb Ambedkar's decision to contest Lok Sabha elections "ne Congress ki neend haram kar di (gave the Congress sleepless nights). Babasaheb was defeated thanks to "gandi se gandi harkat (dirty tricks)". She justifies voting against the BJP government after promising not to, "Viswasghaat ka jawab vishasghaat se diya ... Jaisa ko taisa (Treachery was met with treachery)." The throng goes wild. It is time for the valediction, "Desh ka maalik banna hoga, tabhi aarakashan ka faida hoga (Only state power will ensure benefits of reservation)." The Mayawati manifesto has been released. The dictatorship of the Dalit is on its way.

-Ashok Malik

JYOTI BASU, CPI (M)
Vulnerable Chieftain

Can you spare a picture of me with him?" asks one of West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu's security personnel. "I have realised I don't even have one. This is perhaps my last chance," he adds. On the campaign trail, 86-year-old Jyotibabu is still drawing crowds at his rallies; they are coming in droves, looking for keepsakes. For the people, Jyoti Basu's campaign isn't about this election. It is about nostalgia.

The question: is this the Basu they would want to remember? At his first election meeting in Calcutta, he consistently called Mamata Banerjee "Mamata Gandhi". At a meeting in Nadia two days later, he had to consult his comrades on stage to get Ajit Panja's second name. Frequently, he forgets the name of the local candidate who is sharing the podium with him and has to read out the name in much the same way as Sonia Gandhi reads out her speeches.

Despite ruling for 22 years, the CPI(M) appears cash strapped and hiring a chopper for the ailing Basu is too expensive. So the party has scheduled only 17 meetings for him. Frighteningly simple, Basuspeak hasn't changed, though. "If the Left was in power at the Centre, all the problems you have would have been solved," he tells an audience in Krishnanagar. "But we will have to wait a while before that happens." The improbability of both parts of the statement ricochets off the audience and somehow loses itself. The facts stand thus: the Left Front holds 33 of the 42 seats in West Bengal, but there are apprehensions within the party that they stand to lose (or will only scrape through) in 10 of those seats. With the Congress all but wiped out in West Bengal, the threat is from the Trinamool-BJP combine. This election will indicate which way the electorate will go in the West Bengal assembly elections of 2001. An election that may not see Basu at all.

-Avirook Sen

GEORGE FERNANDES, Samata Party
No-Frills Journeyman

Nothing can change george Fernandes, the man. Not even the trappings of power. The defence minister still washes his own clothes, carries neither a mobile nor satellite phone and moves around without security cover in the midst of a gruelling campaign. He is an unlikely minister, he flies economy class. In his own constituency, Nalanda, he often moves around on motorcycles since the interiors are beyond the reach of any four-wheeler.

After his infamous reference to Sonia's contribution to the country being two children and nothing more, he is more restrained. He never mentions her by name, though the digs come thick and fast. "They cry over the 400 killed in Kargil. What about the 1,157 soldiers who died in Sri Lanka in a bid to get one man the Nobel Prize?" And no campaign speech is complete without a reference to Bihar's "treasury thief", which has the audience in splits. Elsewhere, he speaks about the Emergency days, the torture inflicted on his brother and the threats to his mother. "And a woman was the prime minister then." The audience is spellbound. With George around, they always are.

-Rohit Parihar

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