The Hindu : Poll-Pourri

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 23, 2004

National

National - Elections 2004

Poll-Pourri

Six-para appeal

Raising resources for electioneering is both an art and science. From individual contributions to hefty corporate funding, the sheer variety is mind-boggling. While the bigger parties have their own style of raising funds, the CPI general secretary, A.B. Bardhan, has written personal letters of appeal for contributions. The brief six-paragraph letter contains a short note on the challenges ahead and what the CPI stands for. "The battle is tough and calls for resources. The time is short. We appeal to you for help. We solicit your urgent contributions to the party election fund," it reads.

During the 1999 general elections the appeal resulted in the party raising Rs.7.32 lakhs through contributions.

V is for victory

When mediapersons rushed to the BJP president, M. Venkaiah Naidu's Aurangzeb Road residence two days ago, they were hoping for a juicy story or quote; but it turned out that they had been invited for the Telugu new year `Ugadi' celebrations and a feast was on offer. As Mr. Naidu himself described it, the occasion was meant for `meeting, greeting and eating.' The noted Sanskrit scholar from Hyderabad M. Nagphani Sharma delivered a sermon in Telugu, which, Mr. Naidu said was the annual forecast. So, what is the forecast for the BJP? Mr. Naidu said that according to the panchang or forecast, it predicted a good year ahead for all those whose names have the letter `V,' so it ought to be good for `Vajpayee and Venkaiah.'

Cause for worry

April 26 is a polling day in many parts of Maharashtra. And that has candidates and party managers worried. For, the day is auspicious for weddings and fear is that it will affect adversely the voter turnout. Wedding days mean two things to poll managers: one, people travel to weddings, often away from their towns and those votes are lost; and, two, even those who attend weddings in their own towns and cities, often find it difficult to return to their localities and then go in search of polling booths.

Third time lucky?

This will be the third time a mother and a son belonging to the Nehru-Gandhi family will be contesting from Rae Bareli and Amethi Lok Sabha constituencies.

In 1977, the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and her son Sanjay Gandhi contested from the two seats respectively and both lost.

However, in 1980 they both won and by huge margins of more than one lakh votes.

This time, Indira Gandhi's daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi, and her grandson, Rahul Gandhi, are testing the electoral waters from Rae Bareli and Amethi seats respectively.

— K.V. Prasad, Vinay Kumar, Mahesh Vijapurkar and T. Ramakrishnan

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