New Delhi, April 25 (Inditop) Imagine a candidate whose wife always votes for his rival! That’s the case with Ajit Kumar Jain ‘Patwa’ of Madhya Pradesh.
Jain, 55, is contesting from Indore as an independent for a record 27th time and is busy campaigning. But he always fails to “woo” his wife Rajkumari Jain, who votes for his rival.
Ask him why his wife doesn’t vote for him and he says: “Bai bai ko vote deti hai (women vote for women).
“My wife votes for the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party’s) Sumitra Mahajan even though she has done little for the city,” he said.
Jain, who earns Rs.200 per day by making fancy necklaces, has contested no less than eight times for the Lok Sabha and nine times each for the assembly and Indore Municipal Corporation.
This time round he wants enough people to vote for him so that he does not lose his deposit. But will Rajkumari be one of them?
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Polls apart and royally so
You may be erstwhile royals, but still be poles apart during polls – not only in terms of ideology but also wealth. That is what the two main candidates in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi constituency have shown.
Congress leader and five-time former chief minister Virbhadra Singh, who belongs to the former royal family of Bushehr, is far ahead of his rival candidate Maheshwar Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in terms of wealth.
Virbhadra Singh’s wealth is nearly Rs.180 million more than that of Maheshwar Singh, three-time MP and scion of the erstwhile Kullu ruling family.
Bushehr’s royal couple – Virbhadra Singh and his wife and MP Pratibha Singh – are jointly worth Rs.220 million, while Kullu’s royal couple – Maheshwar Singh and Meera Kumari – is jointly worth Rs.28 million.
The dominance of royal candidates in Himachal Pradesh politics was broken in 1977 when Ganga Singh Thakur, a Janata Party candidate, won the polls from Mandi.
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On new Congress posters, trinity takes backseat
After a series of posters with the photographs of Congress trinity Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the party has now come up with some new ones.
In this series, the trinity has been relegated to the background. The face of a young girl or boy dominates the poster. If the messages on these posters are any indication, it is clear the target is the youth.
The posters promise more IITs, IIMs and job opportunities. “Aur naye IIT, IIM, Mahavidyalaya aur rozgar ke avsar,” it says.
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Now shoe hits Amul ad
Known for its newsy catchphrases, milk cooperative Amul has now trained its sight on the infamous shoe episode.
An Amul billboard in Delhi says, “Just shoe it”, and has a caricature of Home Minister P. Chidambaram looking at a shoe flung by a journalist, much like the real life episode.
The shoe has been circled to emphasise the point!
rounak