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BSP beating retreatSOLAPUR: How the mighty fall. The one-time kingmaker'' and last-time loser Kanshi Ram is touring Maharashtra to empt...

BSP beating retreat

SOLAPUR: How the mighty fall. The one-time 8220;kingmaker8221; and last-time loser Kanshi Ram is touring Maharashtra to empty grounds and hasty exits. Another embarrassment awaited the BSP chief in Solapur, where he arrived on Tuesday for a meeting to a lukewarm welcome and found that only a hundred-odd couple had turned up. Worse, his 8220;motorcade8221; comprising three cars was even shorter than the police escort of seven cars. The livid BSP boss refused to take the throne-like chair set up for him on the dais, just seizing the microphone and barking in it: 8220;Elect our candidate to save the country.8221;

For his own partymen, he reserved more choice comments:8220;Log jama nahin kar sakte to bulaate kyon ho? If you can8217;t collect people, why do you call me?.8221; And left. Insulted to their face, the red-faced organisers were left with the task of announcing that the planned press conference of Kanshi Ram stood cancelled, and of the humiliation of seeing the short and not so sweetexperience become the talk of the town.

FARIDABAD: High-flying former Union minister Rajesh Pilot had a hard landing in this Lok Sabha constituency8217;s Tigaon village on Thursday. His chopper attracted crowds, but by the time the dust settled, the people were taking him to task. Why had the Congress nominated a non-Gujjar for the seat, demanded local leader, Jagat Singh Nagar, at the meeting Pilot had come to address. Were there no Gujjar candidates? Himself a Gujjar, Pilot was non-plussed. Later, he was almost reduced to pleading for the Congress8217;s Meo candidate, Zakir Hussain, in what is one of the largest Gujjar villages in Faridabad.

8220;In 1980, when I had contested from Bharatpur, it were the Meos who helped me win. There are only 60,000 Gujjar votes in that constituency. Yeh unki meherbani thi. Mere par unka bahut bada ehsaan hai. Isko utar sako to utar dena The Moes did me a favour. I owe a lot to them. If you can repay them, I will be grateful,8221; he urged voters. The emotional outpouring seemed towork, evoking a few claps from the mostly indifferent audience.

Later, Pilot tried to calm things further down: 8220; Every community has a right that they should have their own representatives. We in the Congress have been striving for it and will continue to do so.8221; His speech then went on to touch the issue of corruption in politics, the BJP8217;s exploitation of the Kargil conflict, instability in the country and frequent polls. There, he may have lost the people again. As one elderly village remarked: 8220;He is our leader. We have to pay attention to what he says, even if doesn8217;t concern us.8221;

YEOTMAL: Sharad Pawar may have broken away from the Congress, but the mental disassociation is taking time. During his tour of Vidarbha, he launched a blistering attack on Sonia Gandhi. In his speech, he explained at length the need to defeat the Congress. But in the end, much to the amusement of the crowd, he held his hand out, opened his palm fully and blurted out: 8220;Vote for the Hand8221;.

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MAHENDRAGARH: What more cana first-time candidate want on campaign trail? The personal security officer of Sudha Yadav, the BJP Mahendragarh nominee, is none other than her own sister-in-law, Krishna Yadav. Sudha is the wife of a Kargil martyr and has just entered the political fray. She requested that her sister-in-law, the SHO of an all-women police station in Fatehabad, be made her PSO. The nod came, and now Krishna is there to support Sudha through the rough and tough of politics.

A service revolver dangling around her waist, Krishna is present everywhere that Sudha is. Besides the usual security drill, she serves Sudha food and water and even keeps an account of how many party flags have to stocked in her vehicle.

8212;Bakhtiyar Tangsal, Hitender Rao, Prafulla Marpakwar