From the India Gate: Chandy Tourism, Lal Diary Turbulence and More

PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS
It has been three weeks since former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy passed away. The visual of his cortege wading through a sea of humanity is still trending on social media. But more touching is the endless procession of common people to his cemetery even on working days. Hundreds of people from all over Kerala reach his tomb from early morning to evening to pay tributes. Some are here to say a silent thanks but a majority continues to be attracted by the aura enveloping this people’s leader.

Sensing a business opportunity, a tour operator in Thiruvananthapuram has launched a package to visit Chandy’s tomb in Puthuppally, Kottayam district. There is even a two-day package with an itinerary covering nearby churches also.

Interestingly, the list of items offered to anyone enlisting for the tour package includes candles to be lit at the tomb, flowers to pay respects, etc. Soon other tour operators will also bite the bait to shepherd thousands of Chandy lovers to the Puthuppally church.

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MUZZLE ON LAL DIARY

The Rajasthan government is muscling in to permanently silence Rajendra Gudha’s Lal Diary. The move stems from a general panic that has gripped the Congress after Gudha released a part of it where the name of the Chief Minister’s kin appears.

Though the revelation in this trailer is nothing sensational, Congress is expecting more damage once the full-length of the diary is released.

Sources said the Gehlot government is all set to initiate legal action to muzzle Gudha and his diary. All eyes are on the ousted leader now to gauge his response as Gudha is betting heavily on the diary and its mysteries to bounce back into Rajasthan politics.

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PSEPHOLOGISTS’ U-TURN

Unlike astrologers, a psephologist reads signs on the ground to predict the course of an election. And their price tags read proportionally to the accuracy of prediction and value of the strategy they advise to capture votes.

With politicians trusting more on psephology than their own skills to be connected with people, there are many political scientists who have taken a plunge into this possibility. But many of these local PKs (P.K. being an acronym for the most sought-after Prashant Kishor) have little or nil scientific understanding of psephology.

Most of them read the straw in the wind to arrive at a conclusion, which invariably, will be far from what a voter has in her mind. But this BJP leader who lost the recent elections will vouch for the fact that none of the predictions garnished with mathematical formulae and caste equations can be trusted. He had a team of 10 PKs to give advice. All of them predicted a sure-shot victory albeit with a slender margin. But election results proved them all wrong.

Interestingly, all of them had the same list of excuses to justify why their predictions went wrong. And the reasons range from the profile of the CM candidate to last-minute u-turn of voters. None of these PKs have ever been heard saying "sorry, we erred".

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