Backward bandwagon

Some 17 political parties have come together to ride the anti-EVM, anti-VVPT bandwagon, with Mamata Banerjee as motorman and Derek O' Brien as guard to the Election Commission, it appears. No surprise. What else can one expect from the two stragglers of political landscape in search of leadership, knowing fully well where they have taken West Bengal all these years? The state is in regression mode socially and economically: Kolkata, Hooghly, Midnapore etc have all become dying cities and people, especially the youth, have no hope of earning two square meals without becoming hoodlums under the wings of the TMC or the CPI(M). What's surprising is the elan or the intellectual acumen of the so-called progressive parties such as the Congress, NCP, SP, CPI, NC, MIMQ et al to jump on the Mamata bandwagon. Have stalwarts such as Ghulam Nabi Azad, Susilkumar Shinde, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ambika Soni, Anand

Sharma, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot of the Congress, Sharad Pawar of NCP, Mulayam Singh, Akhilesh Yadav, Azam Khan and Majid Memon of SP, Raja of CPI, Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah of NC and Asaduddin Owaisi of MIMQ lost their scientific temper to oppose EVM/VVPT system and demand archaic ballot paper system that's full of loopholes to pilfer, stuff and grossly manipulate elections? With this kind of a mindset, if the candidates of these parties lose even their deposit that won't come as a surprise. — R N Shanbhag