Poll Pot

The excited HVC workers say 8220;he is as good as Sushma Swaraj8221;. Not to mention Pramod Mahajan. In Ballag village in Shimla district, the bearded Sharma enraptured the audience with a series of anti-Sonia anecdotes. First he referred to her as 8220;the Italy India Company8221;, adding 8220;we were once ruled by the East India Company8221;. Then he related an incident which reportedly occurred during her campaign trip to Rohtak.

According to him, in one speech, Sonia had to make a reference to Haryana Congress chief Bhupinder Singh Hooda, also known as Bhai Hooda. Apparently, she said 8220;Behuda vulgar8221; instead. Sharma alsoimprovises on a famous Bobby song to get his message across. 8220;Vote padne ke baad wo kahegi, Main Italy chali jaungi, tum dekhte rahiyo8217;.8221;

The audience roared, but the joke may finally be on Sharma. All through, people confused him with another Ram BVilas: Paswan.

HAMIRPUR: Even the ubiquitous table fan at an election meeting is not an occasion to be missed for a jibe at Sonia Gandhi. The BJP8217;s Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister, Prem Kumar Dhumal, recently went to a public meeting at Hamirpur in which table fans had been placed at various vantage points. Guess what would have happened in case Sonia came to address you, he asked.

And went on to answer: the gust of wind from the fans would blow away the paper from which Sonia reads out her speech, and she would be dumb struck.

RAIPUR: There8217;s a lot of adventure in the great Indian democratic exercise. Polling parties have embarked on an arduous journey on bullock carts, elephants, boats, tractors and at some places even on foot toreach several remote voting centres across Chhatisgarh region for the September 25 elections. Election personnel will have to trek more than 10 km and wade through a number of small rivulets on their way to at least 90 polling stations in Raipur, officials said.

8212; Sukhmani Singh, Bajinder Pal Singh and Agencies