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Sunday, Mar 29, 2009
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National

Cricket and commuting

It’s not often that you see your MP travelling by train or playing cricket with boys in the neighbourhood playground. So, early morning commuters at the suburban Sonarpur railway station were pleasantly surprised to see Sujan Chakraborty, sitting MP from West Bengal’s Jadavpur constituency and the CPI (M) candidate for the coming Lok Sabha elections, boarding a crowded train. After chatting with commuters, who complained to Mr. Chakraborty about the shortage of trains on the route and promised to vote for him, he got down at a station and had tea in a clay vessel from a stall on the platform. Two days later, Mr. Chakraborty was seen playing cricket with youngsters at a local playing field. Asked whether he was on a public relation blitz, he said it was no publicity gimmick. "I frequently travel by local trains and play football at local clubs, though the media is not there to report them always.”

Not so tweet!

Twitter bugs were taken for a virtual ride when they decided to “follow” former Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna on the micro-blogging site twitter.com. Conned into believing that the net-savvy politician had borrowed a byte or two from fellow tweeter and U.S. President Barack Obama, nearly 124 net users added him to their list. When contacted, Mr. Krishna’s secretary dismissed the web page as “a bogus misrepresentation” and said Mr. Kris hna only had a website in his name. Moreover, even that would be uploaded only if he decided to contest. The bogus web page has Mr. Krishna declaring he would tour the State in a Nano. It also has him debating issues ranging from crime to moral policing. A recent report in a national daily even quoted from this web-page.

Cards have it wrong

The Korkus, an adivasi community in the dense forests of Melghat Tiger reserve in Amravati district of Maharashtra have a passion for voting. However, they have a problem: In Keli village, the inhabitants complained that their voter identity cards were issued in the name of other villagers. Sajju Darshimbe and his wife Rukhmi live in Keli, yet his wife’s address on the card says Tarubanda village, some distance away. Every time the villagers go with their cards to av ail of benefits under the government schemes they are turned away because of the wrong address. Many voters reapplied and tried to correct the address. But the cards again came back with incorrect village names. They had even taken fresh pictures for the ID cards, but to no avail. “We may not even vote this time,” said one angry villager.

Of gangsters and politicians

Former gangster Arun Gawli has jumped into the fray once again. He will contest from Mumbai South as a candidate of his own party, the Akhil Bharatiya Sena (ABS), after flirting with the idea of contesting on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket. In the last Lok Sabha election, he lost; still he managed a respectable 92,000 votes. With Gawli still in jail for extortion, his citadel in Mumbai’s Dagdi Chawl is lacking its sovereign. However, his popularity remains undented. &# 8220;Who does not know Arun Gawli?” says a cabbie as he brakes at the famous address.

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