He had clear visions -It costs nothing to dream. Daydreams cost next to nothing. His motto - Self-serving is the best serve.” Of the many vistas open before his eyes, he decided to focus on politics. Every party has a high command and a progeny or two waiting in the wings to take flight. Even during daydreams, he silently acknowledged this construct of these high commands - regional or national. As many dreams there are, that many eligible progenies are there will be. Politics sans progenies are like the Sahara Desert without sand and camels.
He understood that a party does not grow from the top but from ground up because of grassroot level workers, local leaders (with muscles or money or both) netas in different tires to support the apex of the pyramidal power structure. Decades spent there lets in a sense of entitlement to share the spoils of power. With top slots kept perpetually reserved and limited, manoeuvring and positioning starts for the secondary and tertiary spots in offer - a dream chance for a few more aspirants.
He then analysed the future stock of various political parties, while toying with the idea of wetting his feet in political waters. After calculating the percentages, permutations and combinations and probabilities, he chose the party which had been out of power and presently placed above NOTA in the elections, as his bets bet. He had his reasons – deadwoods would have been sidelined or expelled, lack of fresh blood rushing in to fill that void and the ease with which he hoped to worm his way in to the coterie centric set up. Also, he had a son and daughter ready to follow in his footsteps.
His family stood at the middle, neither illiterate nor erudite, thus posing no threat to the elite in the Party. This factor, he could use to milk an advantage out of the educational status. He did include the possibility that the Party and the coterie might have preferred candidates to be accommodated, if at all the party snatches an unbelievable victory. Not a surprise why he is well known in the locality as The Calculator.
He started a long political journey with mini posters and flexi-boards depicting faces of The Party and coterie and in a calculated move he had positioned a flexi-boards obstructing a traffic signal. As expected, anger of public spilled into social media getting him a free publicity. The boards were removed after the outcry did not matter at all. But this did not escape the disgruntled eye of a sidelined politico and the act of this upstart reached the Party as a complaint. He received a curt message to leave out the coterie, in the next round of posters and flexi-boards! A few days later he received a primary membership card. The Calculator was surprised at the easy turn of events.
With renewed vigour, he set his sight on three safe seats - for panchayat ward to parliament vis assembly elections. His calculating mind then decided to drum up support for himself, son and daughter by going public with novel ideas and projects and hoped to post landslide victories, in selected wards/constituencies. His first miscalculations occurred here in thinking that the Party will approve and allot to him the wards/constituencies of his choice. He expected appreciation for the novel ideas/projects, which the Party may seize with all hands in deck, to improve its dismal tally in the electoral game. He had erred , again, in thinking that the coterie also has the same vision for the party’s prospects.
The political trajectory of this upstart worried the coterie and went into a battle mode. They had the advantage of gauging the mood and the thought currents of the Chair in the Party. A whisper campaign started to assail the eardrums of the Chair. The Calculator did not coin in this factor that the Chair could be a de facto Party in itself!
Unaware of the whisper campaign, he soon started his own campaign to bring the spot light on to his son and daughter. The two other safe seats going to someone else worried him. Believing in a big bang in place of a splash, he came up with novel ideas/projects for all the three of them and decided to take the chosen wards/constituencies by storm. Surely, the political star-dust this blitzkrieg would kick up, cannot be brushed aside like a mote!
He did not want to wait for an election to be announced to stake claim for tickets. In his view, preparation ahead of time always has more probability of acceptance than a late start. Not wasting time, he called a council meeting and assigned each one a role and explained his Chanakya style battle plan. His son and daughter were taken aback by the audacity but acceded to put forward their best.
Not giving time for the political eggs to hatch, he organised a birthday bash for a 99-year-old, in all the three wards/constituencies. Cajoling the shy old man, he managed a photo shoot. The old man could barely keep his mouth closed. Overwhelmed by joy, he managed to offer a toothless grin. The photo went beyond the print to endear itself to potential voters. Flexi boards sprang up with stamp sized faces of his patron in the Party, dwarfed by this toothless wonder. Being a novel celebration, T V and Print coverage came at no cost.
Another emissary from the Party came with a reprimand and an olive branch - primary membership for his son and daughter. The Calculator thought that the decks are being cleared for the family to contest the first of the polls getting announced- ward/assembly/parliament. He swung into action to devise hitherto unthought of projects to be grounded in his chosen wards/constituencies, whichever goes to the polls first.
To please the Party, he put up dozens of flexi banner, on behalf of his son and daughter, to celebrate a wonder kid’s (Chair’s nephew) nth birthday. With so many contributors to be pleased, the birthday boy and his family managed to get a postage size accommodation apiece.
The ‘Stop the nepo-kids’ a locally assembled toolkit, by a sidelined senior leader, made its rounds in the wards/constituencies. The leader’s grouse - when my kids did not get the lift, why should his kids? The toolkit had the desired effect. The caucus assembled, deliberated and looked up to the Chair. The Chair felt it as an affront to the party (as an insult aimed at the family) and promptly dispatched the fixer.
“The postage sized faces on the flex boards is viewed as a serious insult. Similar antics by a senior neta met with a midnight surgical strike. This neta was only aspiring for a post in government with or without power. Along with the wasted waiting years, he got dumped in the recycle bin. Remember this.
“With foresight I had selected these projects, to bolster the prospects of the party. Am I not taking a risk here, based on the funding and commissioning of the de-salination plant? If successful who would get the credit, me or the party? Why single out my family and our aspirations?”
“This sort of thinking will only dump you in to
deep waters, without a safety jacket!”
“Why are you giving me jolts, in instalments? Am I not trying my best to ensure victory in at least three seats for the party?”
“Actually, the issue of overreaching is beyond winning three paltry seats. In fact, the Party was waiting for such bright ideas to spring from the minds of children belonging to the caucus. The party wanted to make a nationwide impact and to project them as saviours, to mitigate the thirst of people and cattle, and at the same time extending a pipeline to tap into the rural vote banks and to make the middle-class voters garden-hose happy.”
Stop wearing that garland, made with bus tickets, train tickets, parking lot tickets and flight tickets, while visiting these wards/constituencies. Where from you got the idea that only two railway tracks are needed to run a train to that constituency? Is it sufficient if you have the red and green flags ready? How can you promise to bring an airport to a constituency which is no hurry to get connected to somewhere? These half-boiled ideas and promises are not sitting well with the coterie and the chairperson of the Party.”
“Why? I was only trying to draw attention to the fact that I will make these travels accessible to all and thereby endear the voters and deliver three seats in panchayat ward to parliamentary elections!”
“This violates the right of the Party to choose and we are unhappy. This is urgent and important. Stop your daughter from shouting the slogan "if you have the pencil, I am the sharpener". Stop your son carrying a notebook and asking for a pen to write on “How can he guarantee,” if you are ready, you will have a university and a teaching hospital here at your door steps?”
“Oh! they are only trying to make the crowd feel enthusiastic that we are with them and they too could do the same.”
“But the Party feels you are letting loose your kids to outshine some of the dormant youngsters, being groomed to enter the political arena. This transgression is tantamount to cross border conspiracy, akin to collusion with foreign hands to derail the party’s bid to come to power. We take a dim view. Looking at your potential, the Party orders you to have a political advisor. An advisor might have guided to avoid these sorts of pitfalls and prevented you from laying landmines in your own political path.”
The fixer left, leaving the Calculator no option but to redouble his efforts to win over the confidence of the party. Ignoring the suggestion of the fixer, he decided to do it himself. He had generated some newsworthy interest in the local tabloids. Though limited in reach, he would make use of it. This time, instead of projecting it as his brainchild, he would pass it on as the inner thinking of the Party, which always dreamt of helping the poor, downtrodden and the thirsty.
He reappropriated his project/scheme as a grand scheme being planned by the party – piped water to each cattle, hut and houses from the proposed de-salination plant. To maximise the impact of this scheme, he readied a punch line to his rhetoric - “There is no party that dares the twin devils of thirst and hunger?” On retrospection, he discarded the ‘hunger’, to avoid the anger of a dieting (starving) population, he ended up thundering – vote us to quench your thirst.
The active, local toolkit, wired this breaking news and the Party took action at lightning speed. Another heavy weight emissary knocked at the door, at midnight. No preamble. The emissary started right away, “Your egghead, has managed to commit a political suicide. Could you not keep your ideas buried in a pit? The power that be and the waiting for the power that will be are hopping mad at your Himalayan blunder. The Party is seriously annoyed with you.
Now, you have forced our hands to start a de-salination plant in each ward/constituency, where you and family want to contest. Becoming furious, the emissary said,” Do you know how far away is the sea from the wards/constituencies? You did not stop there. You promised to supply drinking water to the neighbouring constituencies too!”
“Perplexed the Calculator asked, “Why this bothers the Party instead of appreciating it?”
“One - you are trying to nurture that constituencies for your family. Two – Instead of going public, you should have handed over this golden idea to the ‘waiting in the wings progenies’ to climb up the ladder. Three - as advised, you have not appointed a political advisor.”
The emissary handed over three covers, expelling them from the party for six years. Later the Calculator came to know that his prepared constituencies will be allotted to trusted lieutenants, who will use his campaign plans. He regretted the decision not to have a political advisor.
The political fiasco and the
expulsions left him with shattered dreams. He was in for another shock. His
dormant conscience woke up with a vengeance and shouted at him like drill
sergeant – “Oh, what a naive fool you had become?”
He asked, “What sort of a sermon
is this?
His
tormentor replied,” That you are not clever enough to understand how the
election wheel turns in the party. Better frame the expulsion notices and
probably you can use them as a certificate to reach out to another party! The
moral is “climb the political ladder only when told to do so.”
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