An exit poll I conducted last evening in Lucknow
I arrived here last evening and went to all the party offices distributing my visting card.
“If there’s a press conference please give me a call.”
Sure, sure.
The Congress office looked like an abandoned monument, the SP office like a bar where all drinking would soon end. At the BJP office they were telling me the media exit polls were wrong, as if I were responsible for them and the the BSP office, well, I didn’t go there because from past experience I know they would send me to Behenji’s house half a kilometre away.
At Sushri Kumari Behen Mayawati’s house, the half a dozen security personnel let you go to the outhouse reluctantly when you tell them you’re a journalist. Man named Ganga Prasad is presiding there, claiming again the exit polls were wrong, and that the BSP was going to get a full majority, as if he had learnt this ”bite” from Behenji herself. A senior journalist from Delhi is also sitting there and Ganga Prasad asks with subaltern arrogance if we Delhi journalists even knew how they drink water in the villages. The other journalist and I made the mistake of chatting with each other in English, levaing Ganga Prasad out, who promptly intervened to say, “Achcha bus app log chaliye“. Time’s up.
Lucknow is home for me and I have lived under past Behenji governments. I took a rickshaw back home. These roofless rickshaws I tremendously miss in Delhi. I ask the rickshawpuller:
“Vote dala tha?” Did you vote?
“Haan.” Yes.
“Kisko?“ Which party did you vote?
“Siekul.” The Samajwadi Party.
“Kaun jaati ho tum?” What caste are you?
“Pasi.” A Dalit caste.
“Par Pasi to haathi ko vote diye rahin?” But dalits vote for the BSP, don’t they?
“Diye to rahin.” They do. (Smirks.)
“Toh matlab tum humko c*****a bana rahein ho! Tum haathi ko vote diye rahin!” That means you’re fooling me? You voted for the BSP?
He laughs loudly.
You can follow the results here even as they pour in.
link
curious. For various reasons, I dislike Mayawati, the new Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. 1At Sushri Kumari Behen Mayawati’s house, the half a dozen security personnel let you go to the outhouse reluctantly when you tell them you’re a journalist. 2As for corruption, the most interesting is Mayawati’s response: if the upper caste politicians and bureaucrats make money through corruption, so must the dalit, for the dalit should be entitled to all sources of money/power/benefit as the upper caste.
nice!
[...] recahed here last evening. Apparently, a lot of Delhi journalists, most of them with TV crews, were also arriving yesterday. [...]
Splendid!
I don’t know why but this short post made me smile.