It is time for the Lok Sabha elections and it is time for the politics of calculators.
Yes, One the largest democracies in the world is going to polls in a month. And the calculators, the king makers, the alliance makers and the bookies are busy again.
Indeed, a democracy is a funny board of game where the ones who are able to accumulate the most numbers wins.
This is precisely what is happening in Indian politics these days. Till about a few days back there were two main fronts in the fray - the UPA and the NDA. One calling itself secular and the other the non-secular. So there were a few other parties that joined one of these alliances based on what their ideologies were (if you are wondering what idealogies mean, then these parties can explain it better). But all of a sudden the small parties that formed part of the big alliances broke-off due to a seat sharing debate and new equations began to fall in place.
Consider this - Lok Janshakti party leader Ram Vilas Paswan and Rastriya Janata Dal leader Laloo Prasad Yadav were the worst of enemies till a few days back swearing at each other, throwing dirt at each other and doing what not. All of a sudden they are together, embracing each other, praising each other and agreeing to a lok sabha poll aliance in Bihar. I, for sure am still not able to figure out what their idealogies were.
Trinamool Congress and Nationalist Congress Party were two factions headed by Mamta Banerjee and Sharad Pawar that were break-aways from the Congress. The reason why they broke away - difference of opinion and idealogy. They have agreed to form an alliance with the Congress Party. No wonder if you are guessing - then why the different factions if there is no difference of ideology when they can form a pre-poll alliance.
The answers to these questions are the trumps to winning this board game. Keep your calculators out and keep calculating because there would be many more such calculations when it comes to forming the government at the center.

What is the easiest way to become famous and ensure that you have all the support in the world - support good enough to get you elected from your constituency even if you had no chance of winning?
If you do not know the answer to this question then ask Varun Gandhi. The other son from the Gandhi family who has been writing poems for the past few years suddenly learn the formula of getting instant fame on the political scene in India, more so when the Lok Sabha elections were so close and he had to contest the election from a Constituency where his mother used to contest from till about some time.
The learned son of Maneka Gandhi, who is an animal activist, suddenly realized that human beings were not as worthy of animals and went out on a hatred speech in Pilibhit, a constituency in UP. Congress had earlier fielded a strong candidate from this constituency belonging to the Muslim Community. (They blame other parties of being anti-secular and they play a very smart game of doing that the diplomatic way). Varun Gandhi knew exactly what to do. he knew he had to woo the hindu vote bank there which was the only way of winning the elections. So there he appeared in Pilibhit as the savior of the Hindus and delivered a strong inflammatory speech with statements like, "any hand that is raised on the hindus - Varun Gandhi will chop it off". Probably he felt that he was the next avtar of the Vishnu.
But the Election Commission felt otherwise. They filed a case and an arrest warrant was issued against the young Gandhi. Varun Gandhi again knew how to use this to his benefit. He made a public appearance and courted arrest in full public view, thus garnering a few sympathy votes and quite a few followers. Finally he has learnt the dirty art of politics.
Was this speech required? Am I really bothered about things that Varun spoke to about in his speech? Probably I am not, but there are yet others who are bothered, I guess.
Politics, today is dirty indeed. The Bharatiya Janata Party garners support by being anti-secular and by promoting Ram and Ayodhya. The Congress party garners support by acting secular which they are not. It is just that they are smart enough not to make a public stageshow of anti-secularism. Yet others there in the meantime keep changing loyalties.

Citizens in a democratic country is not free of villains, rather I should say they are surrounded by villains. Most of these villains are the ones who were made to protect the citizens of these democracies. Politicians, police, and now the Judiciary.
I wonder why is it that we call this a democracy. Probably because we have the right to ask and they have the right to deny. The Judiciary has always been playing the villain but till date they were playing a passive role. They only ensured that no politicians or, people with power were punished, thereby paving the way for these unpunished criminals to harass and humiliate the innocent citizens of the democracy.
But now they have decided that enough is enough. They felt that they now had to come to the forefront and show their power.
That is when the Chief Justice of India issued an ordinance challenging the RTI Act. They said that the officials in a Judiciary do not require to furnish information sought under the Right to Information Act because such information could compromise the security of the country.
Worth a laugh, isn't it?
This is probably how terrorists made a mockery of the system in the Mumbai terror attack.
This is how terrorists set-up the serial blasts in New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Jaipur.
And this is precisely how the terrorists set-up the local train blasts in Mumbai.
Isn't it?
Hasn't the security of the country been compromised till date? Is it because of some information that a Judiciary official has divulged?
What security information would the information on the assets of a Chief Justice of the country have?
Difficult to understand, isn't it?
But our Chief Justice feels so.
Then the judiciary came out with a libel ruling. Bloggers will be responsible for any comments that involve hatred or, communal remarks on their blogs.
Funny!!!
So henceforth I need to control the expression of somebody else. That is freedom of expression. Isn't that moral policing?
Why should we be penalising only the Sri Ram Sene?

At time I feel pity at the condition that Indian Politics is in, give the kind of stupids that our politicians are. When I draw a comparison between a leader like that of Barack Obama to anyone in the Indian Political scenario, I feel as it I am insulting Mr.Obama.

Consider the case of an ex-Dy. Chief Minister of Haryana, Mr. Chander Mohan who went onto embrace Islamism and changed his name to Chand Mohammed. A few weeks back this foolish politician went into hiding and nobody could trae him. He was sacked from the position of the Deputy Chief Minister. All of a sudden he made a public appearance and called up a press conference letting everyone know that he has changed his religion and has accepted Islamism and that he did this because of love. He rendered a long lecture on what love was and about the extent to which a man in love can go to. He had along with him his newly found love Fiza, originally named as Anuradha Bali though he was married and had two children.
The Indian law prohibits Polygamy but, there was no law questioning Mr.Mohammed. The next few days the couple was all over the news channels and the new channels were also shamelessly airing this news. But the irony is that the drama did not end here.
After a week, another new surfaced that Mr.Mohammed had been kidnapped and the basis of this news was a complaint filed by Ms.Fiza at a nearby police station. To add to the fun, all of a sudden Mr.Mohammed appeared before the news channels saying that he was absolutely fine and that he was never kidnapped. He went on to ask the media, "Am I a child who can be kidnapped?"
The day after the next, the news became even hotter. Ms. Anuradha Bali, alias Fiza attempted suicide and was admitted to the hospital and proclaimed in front of the media that everything was not fine between her and Mr.Mohammed. That was an end to the relation between the two. The next days newspaper carried a news quoting Mr.Chand Mohammed that, "he misses his first wife very much."
How ridiculously foolish can a politician alias a leader be. He who is to set an example for the people of the country has made a mockery of himself and the political system. Pity my minister! Pity!

This is a video of the swearing in ceremony of Barack Obama. A look at the crowd that had gathered to witness the inauguration and the ceremony, makes one ponder at the popularity that Obama commands amongst the people of the US. It is for a fact that he is a true leader and only true leaders get such huge followings.

News like the one that reads, "Kalyan Singh quits BJP" makes one wonder as to what are the ethics and ideologies of a National Party. Veteran leaders quit parties saying that they have lost faith in the ideologies of the party. The 2 primary National parties in India are the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Over the past few years, both these parties have moved away from their core beliefs and ideologies. We have seen both these parties teaming up with parties that were at the opposite end in principles, just to form a government. We have also seen these parties compromise on their basic ethics multiple times, though nothing is yet proven (ah! what has proven till today).
This time round it was the turn of the BJP vice-president Mr.Kalyan Singh, to resign. This is the second time that he is doing this. Earlier he returned to the party after resigning in 1999. This time again Mr.Kalyan Singh went on to say, “I am not a bonded labour of the BJP”. He said that "OBCs constitute 50 per cent of the population, yet there is no honour and place for OBC leaders in the BJP."
These statements make one wonder as to what is it that Mr.Singh was expecting. I believe he wanted a special treatment just because he was an OBC. If this is not the reason there is no other reason, we can see, especially when Mr.Singh was serving the party as its Vice-President.
There is also a second story to it. Mr.Singh's son (the next generation politics) was yet to be seen on the forefront in the political arena. It was very unlikely that he would be pushed to the front or, given a ticket to contest the elections by the BJP. This meant that the political legacy was at a full-stop after Mr.Kalyan Singh. Mr. Singh saw a saviour in the Samajwadi Party, who agreed to give a ticket to his son, Mr. Rajvir Singh and for this to happen, he but obviously had to quit his party. What a move, Mr.Singh.
I wonder what is Samajwadi Party upto. It seems they are setting up a new business called politics.

A few days, all the news channels were airing a statement from a Spokesman of the Bahujan Samaj Party (Read, the Mayawati party). The Spokesman was commenting upon some press conference the always-in-the-headline-for-the-wrong-reasons politician, Amar Singh had made a day before about the-cleanest-character-on-earth politician Ms. Mayawati.

Mr. Amar Singh, was informing the press about a sting-operation (these seem to be the hottest thing today, hotter than the A-Certified movies) that was done on the UP Chief Minister Ms. Mayawati, where she was shown calling herself, "The daughter of money" and saying that she lives for money. The fact of the matter is that nobody has yet seen this sting-operation video. Nevertheless, Mr.Amar Singh, himself has nothing to do the whole day, hence he thought he would engage some reporters who also had nothing to do for the entire day. A few specific parts of this conference was being aired repeatedly (one would be made to assume that the tape was stuck at that point), on all so-called News Channels.

Suddenly the Spokesman appeared and our reporters knew that they have a scoop. They rushed to him and like all other cultured ministers and politicians, this spokesman read out his party's statement. If you hear the statement, you would wonder if it is being made for a politician who is called respectable by a few section in politics and by a spokesman from a respectable party - as BSP is called. The statement is question said, "It seems Mr.Amar Singh has lost his mental balance and in not in his senses. Our party would say that the right place for Mr.Amar Singh is the mental asylum and we recommend that he get himself treated from a good psychologist."

Are you now wondering why we call it, "Dirty Politics".

What is it that would prompt a person who is 85 years old to jump into the fray in a Lok Sabha elections and that too, projecting himself as the Prime Ministerial Candidate? This question assumes more importance if the person has already been into politics for more than 50 years. My guess is as good as yours.
I would not go by the fact that this is because of his love to the country and its people. Nor would I accept the fact that he is still left with quite a lot of things to do for his countrymen. Rather I would it is the love for power and money that he is doing this.
Yes, the man in question is Mr. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the earlier Vice President of India. Mr Shekhawat who was a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, had earlier served as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan on at least 3 occassions before becoming the Vice President. He later resigned from this position after losing the Presidential elections to Smt. Pratibha Patil. Is there something else that he will be able to do for the country and its citizens, more so considering the fact that he is already 85 years old.
I would have no answer but Mr. Shekhawat would probably have. Money, Power and what not? That is the crude saga of politics. Indian politics is today an arena where even the dead would want to come back to.