This is a dull and lukewarm election, and just how so can be gauged from a journey via Indian Railways. Having listened to animated discussions on elections and candidates in trains before, I expected heated debates on Sonia Gandhi and Sushma Swaraj as I boarded the Hampi Express from Bangalore to Bellary. I was amidst four final-year MBA students who are going to Bellary to intern at the Jindal steel plant. "It is very hot in Bellary, how can we stick to that place for a month?" one complained. An elderly couple siting beside us was eager to know what fate awaited Sonia and Sushma. "Who cares for elections, uncle! We will not vote this time because we are sure there will be elections next year also," the talkative among the MBAs said. The uncle and aunt soon went to sleep. The general lack of interest among the new generation of voters is not confined to the educated classes. In Bellary, a young autorickshaw driver who takes me around the town is more forthcoming: "The only good thing about elections is that it brings me more money. So I pray for more elections every year. I don't care who is contesting where." Sonia and Sushma descending on this remote district in Karnataka may have made Bellary famous. but for its residents, this little town is famous not for the star women contestants. They are proud of the Fort of Bellary that was built on a three-km long, single rock. "It is the second biggest single rock in the world," a local resident claims without knowing where the first is. For the local populace, there is immense pride in the fact that Bellary is Asia's second largest manufacturing base for branded and unbranded jeans and is home to India's second biggest rich iron-ore deposit. Since then I have struggled, in vain, to find out which are first past the post in jeans manufacturing and iron deposits, and any assistance from the readers will be most welcome. As I waited for an interview with H D Deve Gowda in Bangalore, one of his aides told me the former premier was nagged by two problems. One, the tractor, and the other, film star Ambareesh. The day the Election Commission allotted his rump Janata Dal the tractor symbol, Deve Gowda ordered for two brand new ploughing machines. As soon as they arrived, the former PM wanted to drive one while launching his party's election campaign in Bangalore. But for one problem: Deve Gowda had forgotten driving, having sat at the wheel some 30 years ago. Soon he went for a crash course in tractor-driving on a friend's farm on the outskirts of Bangalore. Finally, India's first southern farmer PM drove his poll symbol on a two-km stretch road in the city. But the next day, a group of city residents filed a case against Deve Gowda in the city court for violating traffic rules. Also on that day, his long-time associate and film-star Ambareesh deserted him to join the Congress party. Only a day earlier, Deve Gowda had visited Ambareesh and got an assurance from him that the fellow Vokkaliga would not desert him. "Political tussles in Karnataka take a new turn everyday," the Deve Gowda aide remarked. In front of the controversial Sufi shrine -- that symbolises Hindu-Muslim unity -- atop Baba Budangiri in Chikmagalur, an RSS activist and astrologer predicted the Congress's future. Sonia Gandhi will retire from politics after the Lok Sabha election when an unprecedented revolt questioning her leadership shakes up the Congress party. In the next year, the Congress will split into many pieces. But by October 2000, Priyanka Gandhi will step in to unite and steer the party, and lead the Congress to victory in the Lok Sabha election that will be held in 2002. However, she will be assassinated the same year and the Gandhi family's rule of the Congress and the country will end forever. Election campaigns were the dullest in Mangalore. Not more than 100 people gather to listen to the main contestants -- the BJP's Dhananjaya Kumar and the Congress's Veerappa Moily -- speak in the city. According to B V Seetaram, editor of the local Kanara Times, both Kumar and Moily are "discredited people in the eyes of the people." "Mangaloreans are intelligent people. They are fed up with power-hungry, greedy politicians," he says. Moily has been sparring with Janardhan Poojary, his arch-rival in the Congress for so many years now that their communities -- Billavas and Idigas respectively -- have little respect for both. Local journalists claim Dhananjaya Kumar's only achievement has been to hold weekly press conferences. "Mangaloreans do not feel proud of their candidates. That is the reason why there is little excitement for elections here," adds Seetaram. It is not in Orissa, but in Kerala that the slaying of Father Arul Doss is a major election theme. Suspected Hindu extremists killed Father Doss when he was sleeping in a hut in a remote tribal village in Orissa's Mayurbhanj district. However, the ruling CPI-M in Kerala has unleashed a political campaign by twisting the local bishops' statements to lure minority voters, and has printed and distributed thousands of pamphlets across the 20 parliamentary constituencies in the tiny southern state. The pamphlets carry the picture of Father Doss along with the "distorted" condemnatory statements from some bishops. One such pamphlet distributed in Mukundapuram and Ernakulam constituencies quote from a "statement" from Bishop Varghese Chakkalakal of the diocese of Kannur, in which he reportedly accuses the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress of Father Doss's killing. The pamphlet then urges Christian voters to vote against BJP and Congress in line with the call from the bishops. Sensing the damage that the CPI-M is causing to the church, bishops are now coming out with daily statements accusing the communist leaders of making the murder of Father Arul Doss a campaign theme. Polls bring out the best in Associate Editor George Iype
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