Poll tattle reaches fever pitch

Bumping into Ruchir Sharma and other election stories from Kolkata and beyond...

It's quite a coincidence for the writer of the last book you have read to turn up in front of you without notice. A friend, excited about the prospect of election reporting in 2019, had advised Ruchir Sharma’s Democracy on the Road, a 25-year journey chasing the dust and grime and plenty of juicy stuff that election campaigns across the country bring along, as a must-read. So seeing Sharma, also chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, eagerly board the airport bus to catch a plane to Kolkata along with a team that he refers to as “merry band of fellow writers” in the book, was an unexpected start to my election travel to the same city.

Political analysts seem to believe that Kolkata, in fact the whole of West Bengal, is important in the national scheme of things this time more than ever before as the state may witness a ‘poriborton’ (change) of a different kind. Therefore, it’s buzzing with election noise as much as the heartland and the pundits are converging here like they would in Uttar Pradesh. But there’s still time before the people of West Bengal decide on how saffron they want to go. With three more rounds of polling left, things can swing wildly. From the narrative of ‘rosogolla’ to who knows what.

Meanwhile, the election buzz can be heard everywhere. At Delhi airport, for instance, group bookings to various destinations have caught up, in the name of election tourism in many cases. What better time to discover the spirit of a city and a state than when the biggest festival of democracy is playing out big time. On Wednesday morning, an entire flight to Ahmedabad was booked by a group of tourists. Voting is over in Gujarat but the verdict is awaited and tourists’ endless chatter on poll result possibilities fills up the air in the otherwise “noiseless” airport, which stopped making flight announcements quite some time back. 

While betting on the possible numbers and scenarios for May 23, conversations in the airports revolve around issues of interest. Economy, employment, New India , security and also the Jet Airways crisis. Politicians, however, have remained shockingly tight-lipped on the biggest airline collapse of the time and somewhat muted on other serious issues too. The protests so far from the political fraternity have been less than symbolic. The Opposition, while being engaged around non-issues like ‘chowkidar’ and ‘rosogolla’, has failed to take up things that matter. The Jet crisis is one such. A bankers’ consortium, led by the State Bank of India (SBI), tried various permutations and combinations to work out a rescue package for the 25-year-old airline, but failed to infuse even an emergency fund to run it till bidders took a call.

April 30 was the date set for the submission of binding bids. The date has passed without any noteworthy mention from any political party, though bidders had claimed a solution would emerge by May 10. In the election season, Jet should have been a hot potato issue for everyone, especially as state-owned banks were in the driver’s seat while the government (though not on the record at all) was believed to be helping the banks. The common sense assumption was that a resolution would be worked out before the election because Jet grounding was clearly seen as bad news for the government, already facing some tough questions on the lack of adequate jobs. But the bad news has drowned in the midst of other noise even though Jet employees continue with their silent protests against non-payment of dues including medical benefits. In the meantime, a section of the employees has offered a plan to the SBI to run the airline, letters have been written to political leaders including the PM to step in, and a staffer has committed suicide.

That’s not bad news enough to move any politician, calling it a private matter of a company, while the election pitch is about to hit a new high in the final phases. That's all for ‘Naya Bharat’ (New India) as a co-passenger on the Kolkata flight observed with a hint of sarcasm.

It’s Kolkata and beyond now. Ruchir will be around somewhere collecting nuggets, perhaps for a sequel to his latest. “The 2019 ballot will offer a choice of two different political visions, one celebrating the reality of the many Indias, the other aspiring to build on,”  he wrote in Democracy on the Road, adding, ‘’I know where I will be when the carnival begins.’’ 

Back on the road.