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The bored voter has had his share of excitement in an otherwise dull and lacklustre scenario. The scorching summer heat has been a distinct drag on his enthusiasm, not to mention the assorted crooks from various parties contesting the poll.
The voter has willy-nilly exercised his vote under heavy central police forces protection. He has vindictively used his finger to vote against the goons and most of those candidates with unsavoury reputations. The results will startle most of the 'bahubalis' (musclemen) this once.
The election has been conducted in as free and as fair a manner as is possible in turbulent UP (please do not be squeamish and ask the Chief Election Commissioner, today, to provide a detailed account of the huge expenditure of our poor nation's limited/precious resources, both of funds as well as manpower. Reserve that inconvenient/embarrassing query for another day, once the euphoria/dust settles down!)
The results are going to be as predictable as ever. It's the same old boring story one had anticipated a month ago.
The pattern was noticed and the poor performance of the Samajwadi Party screamed loud and clear for all to hear. No one should have missed feeling the 'Moolahyumm rage'.
Moolahyumm Singh Yadav has been reduced literally to dust.
All the huge media ad-spend could not help. The kanyas as well as the 'unemployed youth' all over UP have swallowed the doles. No votes from them have accrued to the Samajwadi Party as was expected while distributing hundreds of crores to them.
How very ungrateful can they be?
Amar Singh, Jayaprada, Amitabh Bachchhan, Shivpal Singh, Beni Prasad Verma, Saharashri Subroto Roy, Chandrama Prasad, Mukhtar Ansari, Atiq Ahmed -- they have all contributed towards his downfall.
Yadav's recent myopic gambit of clandestinely supporting Dr Dinesh Sharma of the Bharatiya Janata Party to become Lucknow's mayor had worked. He used this trick as soon as he realised that his own candidate Dr Madhu Gupta was losing, and the winner would be Dr Manzoor Ahmed, a Muslim fighting on the Congress ticket. He did this to keep his own Muslims' eroding support base intact, and to prevent the damaging message from spreading that a Muslim had defeated Maulana Mulayam's party candidate.
Rumors are rife in UP that this same trick has been resorted to in the latter phases of the election. A secret/clandestine tacit understanding of transferring his votes to the BJP, wherever anyone can defeat Mayawati, the rumours claim.
That is one of the reasons attributed to the BJP's seat-graph rise.
This clumsy and confusing gimmick seems to have proved costly.
Most UP Muslims saw through this, and used that also as an excuse to desert him.
The Muslims have ditched Maulana Mulayam and his sinking ship and jumped onto the Elephant.
Moolahyumm Singh will be phenomenally lucky if his tally crosses the unlucky figure of 84 seats!
No 3-digits score for him, that is for sure.
***
The Congress Party and its organisation are in shambles.
Rahulbaba and his road shows are fine. Many gaping/amused onlookers, and even idiot head-nodders during those road shows -- oh, yes!
But who would convert them into Congress voters?
Who has the time to put the party machinery in fine fettle?
All leaders and no field workers willing to slog and take on the tedious and boring cadre-building task.
The brilliant and suave Kapil Sibal ought to have asked the slothful and sluggish local state 'leaders' a few harsh questions, instead of merely rationalising their ineffectiveness. How dare Congress party workers casually 'rehearse' while they are ostensibly engaged in fighting a crucial assembly election in an important state like UP?
Merely saying that 'our main target is the 2009 Parliamentary election' will not be enough, not at least in UP, Kapilji.
Let a few heads roll.
It is time Akhilesh Das, Ammar Rizwi, Pramod Tiwari, Mohsina Kidwai, Bhola Pande, Salman Khurshid are replaced by a more genuinely committed band of leaders/workers.
With the Parliamentary election fast approaching, UP certainly deserves a better Congress team in place.
After all, naazuk Rahul, Priyanka and mamma Sonia have been sweating it out in the unbearable heat in UP terrain.
If all this is going to get for the Congress a poor tally of hardly around 47 seats, one wonders whether the national Congress Party deserves even those.
***
The BJP won 88 seats when Rajnath Singh was UP chief minister in 2002. This time too the BJP will have to be content with a similar double-digit seat tally.
Nothing more than 99, maybe much less.
There is no major/important issue on which the polarised Hindus would vote en masse. CD gimmicks have failed to whip up mass Hindu vote support.
On the contrary, there has been a sizable erosion of its powerful Brahmin supporters who have moved over to the BSP.
The BJP and VHP are at loggerheads.
Ashok Singhal, the VHP, and the BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee have been quarrelling over the Ram Janambhoomi issue. What property/land was disputed/non-disputed and what should have been handed over to the VHP?
The infighting and backstabbing have not subdued, whether it is at the national, state or district level. In fact, it has intensified, much to the detriment of the overall furtherance of the nationalism and the Hindutva causes espoused by the RSS.
Kalyan Singh hates Lalji Tandon and Rajnath Singh. Atalji does not want Kalyan Singh to be CM. Kalraj Mishra hates everyone by turn. He wishes to 'expose' rival Rajnath's hollowness.
The growing list of infighters means falling seat numbers.
The wrong messages are going to the RSS/BJP/RSS cadres.
Confused and frustrated cadres do not a winning combination make.
One should not be surprised to find VHP cadres supporting Mayawati's BSP, instead of the BJP.
***
Talking of Mayawati, it would now be more appropriate to address her as Mayavotee!
She has sized up the UP voter's psyche/pulse very accurately.
She has done her homework, months in advance, and had her teams of workers in place while the other parties were busy wasting their precious time on non-issues and moneymaking.
No fancy gimmicks.
No film stars and their almost sterile performances. No tinsel town tom-tommers for this focused performer.
Excellent cadre management, work distribution, result accountability, etc. To put it briefly, honest and solid fieldwork.
She has emerged as a real life heroine. She has shown rare tenacity of purpose and deserves her hard-earned victory in this tough battle for the ballot.
Behenji has won the hearts of voters cutting across all petty considerations. Her dedicated cadres have worked the hardest during the last one year.
Her voters have faced all hardships and ventured out in spite of the summer heat. With immense pride, confidence and good faith, they have voted for Mayavotee. How much of those she really deserves and justifies only the future will show.
She is bound to win over 184 seats.
Yes, 100 assembly seats in excess of her wrestler rival Moolahyumm Singh.
If she gets a majority, it will be fine.
In case that cop-turned-Congressman Rajeshwar Rao, presently ensconced in Lucknow's Raj Bhavan refuses to recognise her numerical strength and dares to invoke President's Rule in view of a 'hung assembly', then UP is bound to have some rare fireworks.