Kahani garrr ghar ki!

Election time is a time to make up big, bold promises as well as remind the 'common wo/man' what the party/leader did for her.

The stories running around this time are numerous with varied reasons. It is said that the government took an extra step to prevent rampant expenditures during the last Municipal and PRI elections. They put a blanket ban on drawal of cheques bearing above 20 lakhs. But, this could not stop the inevitable.

The Panchayat election related stories in East Kameng are not different from other districts. Stories fed to the knowledge bank of your’s truly are stunningly peculiar and jovial. In one place (say the Panchayat segments), the contestants were lavishly spent money to woe voters disproportionate to the much known sources of his/her income. That, he/she was living by hand to mouth, let alone spending money for a tea-party. The qualifications he/she bears to become a panchayat leader are supposed to be his/her rudeness and staunch supporter of the local MLA.

In another place, the contesting candidates are stark opposite in pursuing and chasing the flying chair. Here also, money played riots. But, the main factor of winning and losing rests with the ability to manage few hundred lakhs of rupees and distributing the stashed wades of money to the spellbound voters, who, as election comes usually rise their demand for propriety and prestige in volumes of money they have to receive from the warring candidates.

In other places, the local MLA hurriedly promises to sanction developmental funds that have already lapsed last election day. He simply has to repeat this promise umpteen time, for the electorate notionally forget dates and times when he last promised over the same matter. Matter-of-factly, the electorates are trained in such way that they would not ask new questions.

It is imperative that those who do not have sufficient or no money to fight elections have to resort to muscle power. And, logically this is one befitting alternative to win elections. The trendiest of all election tricks is to manage all voting to a null. This is accomplished when the local MLAs come into play. The trick to avoid embarrassing loss in elections is to make the electorate agree that there shall be no contest. Then, the bargain starts now. The electorate wants money. The electorate also wants wine and surely dining too. So, the prospective candidate or better to say the UNCONTESTINGLYNESS candidate spend some thousand rupees to arrange off-the-shoot party killing a mithun or two to ward off the spying eyes. Here again, the local MLA has to promise to bring various sorts of funds for local consumptions. Now the great deal is arrived at.

To be continued …