The cat and mouse game!

PUNE, FEBRUARY 9: Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock, the clock struck six, then seven, the mouse ran down the clock and oh, how he received the cat – not all the Kalmadi baiters nor all the Munde antagonists would have ever dreamt that the cat and mouse could have got together again..With due apologies to the nursery rhymes, it was but a sight that would have even led Hamlet to brush aside his dilemma to be or not to be. T’was inexplicable, yet true. Tables sure have turned, but ’tis a game that only Kalmadi’s clock will tell…And so it went – the clock – tick, tock, tick – rewind to ’96 – Congress party’s sporting face Suresh Kalmadi came like a whiff of fresh air while the Bharatiya Janata Party’s devoted worker Girish Bapat sent many a hearts flutter in downtown Sadashiv Peth.

Fastforward to ’98 – saffron is in the air. It’s everywhere. That politics make strange bedfellows could not be more true when, hey, the former adversaries Kalmadi and Bapat even looked like Siamese twins. WhenBapat hosts the grand show to kick off the campaign, brings in Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde and engineers the grand arrival of Kalmadi on the dais, what more could the principled Punekars want ? And after all it is the Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji who the vote is for, remember..

So back to the huge rally, yep, they found every corner to see the show which was a “success.” It took a Kaka Wadke, Shiv Sena leader to admit to the audience that it was but the diktat of their all and mighty Bal Thackeray that had necessitated the swing in Kalmadi’s favour.

Story continues below this ad

Boy, did they play to the gallery. “Dal Badla hai, dil to nahi, tumhare dil se asani se nahi nikloonga – (Changed my party yes – not my heart- won’t leave your hearts so fast) – Bah ! Do you need an imported leadership, Arre, Kalmadi – hi to hai – Kal, Aaj aur Kal ki jhulti huyi ghadi — (it is Kalmadi’s pendulum that will strike yesterday, today and tomorrow)…

Mock and scorn as you may, but the support is trickling in from all sides.Maulana Kazi, the person who represents vital Muslim votes, was not alone when he was tickled pink to find that he did not have to meet Kalmadi and Bapat privately. These guys actually shared the dais. “Badi pareshani se bach gaye – ek hi jagah pe mil gaye dono,’‘ (Saved from a lot of trouble as met both at the same place)… Do we need to add that Kalmadi and Munde were members of a mutual admiration society…. Time will tell ….the clock has yet to strike one…Hickory Dickory Dock.