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Journalism of Courage
State8217;s shadow PM
GUESS who has taken it upon himself to give sleepless nights to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee? A certain gent by the name of Ramakant Angle who won the Murmagao Lok Sabha seat on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket.
A Congressman-turned-saffron flag-bearer Angle firmly believes that he is destined to be Prime Minister. Having received the good word from his guru, the one and only Chandraswami, Angle has been telling everyone about the prediction for years.
Now that he has finally managed to make it to Parliament, Angle couldn8217;t restrain himself from mentioning the prediction to journalists, who went on to congratulate him!
Victory in defeat!
Congress chief ministers who lead their party to electoral defeats are normally consigned to the recycle bin, but Goa8217;s Luizinho Faleiro may be an exception. One day after the grand old party ended up a distant second in the Lok Sabha elections, Faleiro insisted that he was irreplaceable.
A tally of the election results inhand, the CM reminded reporters repeatedly that the BJP was leading over the Congress in 32 of the 40 Assembly segments. What is worse, the saffron party had gained ground in the constituencies of all the top Congress leaders.
8220;Who is a leader here, tell me,8221; he pressed journalists, a copy of the result-sheet in hand. Here surely was a leader who held his own, despite the collapse all around him.
Electronic mercy killing
While politicians elsewhere in the country waited impatiently for the results to be announced, counting of ballots were already completed in Goa. Thanks to the use of electronic voting machines in all the polling booths in Goa, the first trends were available half an hour after counting commenced. By 11.30 am, results in both Lok Sabha seats were out.
It also helped the beleaguered Congress party in the State. Not only did the quick dissemination of results put pay to the suspense among Congressmen, it gave them enough time for excuses. Since the Grand Old Party was stillrecovering from the debacle nationally!
Tailpiece
The outgoing railway minister Ram Naik is not known for grand standing. But that is what he did away from the home turf of Mumbai. Naik insisted that he would release more land for quadrupling railway tracks between Borivli and Virar by requesting the slum dwellers to move back. 8220;Nobody says no8217; to me,8221; he said. Let8217;s wish him all the best!
8212; SHIV KUMAR
