Campaign done,one Kerala leader youd think who can switch off his cellphone and relax is K M Mani,the perpetual MLA from Pala. No way, refutes a wayside pollster. In the month-long wait for results his phone will be open to calls from all sides. If many of his 15 Kerala Congress candidates win and the Congress-front he fought with doesnt get a comfortable majority,Mani Sir will decide who rules the state. Through the sudden summer drizzle,minutes before the 5pm deadline,Mani closes his campaign with the right loyal noises. Dont take anything for granted, cautions yet another wayside pollster,Mani himself is under electoral pressure. As if to demonstrate his point,BJP workers armed with flag poles get after Manis campaign vehicles. And the BJP isnt even his main rival. The NCPs Mani C Kappen is. Pawars man taking on a Sonia ally is seen as a mere poll time oddity; doesnt provoke wayside analysis. Manis record is far too formidable to warrant upsets. Won every one of the last 11 Assembly polls; been minister for 20 years; presented 8 state budgets; this Guinness-grade player has had only two big misses. In 1965 when the young lawyer got elected for the first time,the Assembly wasnt constituted because no ruling coalition emerged. The second,a more personal letdown,came in 1990. On that wintry November morning,at PM designate Chandrasekhars South Avenue home,the capitals pressmen saw a much mustachioed Malayali walk in. To most of them the apparition draped in a brand new shawl was stranger than the sacred chants going on at the Lohiaite home. Mani had come to greet Chandrasekhar whose cabinet was to be sworn in later in the day. With him as Commerce Minister, thundered the Malayalam media. The portfolio meant a lot to this stalwart from Keralas cash crop-rich Christian belt. Congress strongman Karunakaran had other ideas and better access to Rajiv Gandhi,the puppeteer of the Chandrasekhar show. Manis hopes were dashed in hours. Older and shrewder,Mani at 78 will precision-weigh his post-poll risk. Why do you think he sent his son Jose K Mani to the Lok Sabha? asks a third wayside pundit. To be ready for the Delhi berth dad missed two decades back. And dad himself wont be averse to doing a Chandrasekhar back home. True,Mani has tested fluid politics before. This longtime Congress associate did make a departure in 1980 to join the CPM-led ministry. Surely the states per capita poll punditry has hit a new high in a campaign that soared on television channels from a Congress-friendly match to a photo finish. With a EC gag on further TV dissection,for four full weeks the wayside pollster will hold forth.
