EvEn FivE Star audiEncE rESErvEd itS applauSE For KEjriwal

any political affiliations. Aamir could not resist the temptation of introducing Advani, a gesture noticed by the audience in silence. But when he announced Kejriwal’s presence in their midst, the audience burst into applause. Of course there is a considerable novelty factor in operation. But the danger for all stakeholders in the political bazaar is that they are, by contrast, beginning to look stale and out of date. A foretaste of it was available at the President’s Republic Day Reception. When that audience at the play picked up the next morning’s newspapers, what do you think went on inside their heads? Did they leap with joy when they saw the BJP president, Rajnath Singh hold a laddoo in his fingers and deposit it deep inside Ram Vilas Paswan’s wide open mouth, virtually on his tonsils? With this ritual act, Paswan the “secular” had become Paswan the “communal”. Paswan is an exceptional politician whose status in public life is in inverse proportion to his address in Lutyens’ Delhi. The bungalow, abutting Sonia Gandhi’s, has been his residence ever since he joined V.P. Singh’s Cabinet in 1989. His career has gone downhill since then, but he knows the tricks to stay in play. In 2009, he was given 12 seats by Lalu Prasad Yadav, which he lost. Unhappy with the five seats Lalu and Congress combine were giving him this time, he has turned to the BJP. His great ambition in life is to launch his son, Chirag Paswan, from a safe seat. What is one to make of this desperation on the part of Modi’s cohorts? Coalition, NDA, flexibility — these terms had no currency with Modi’s team for the eight months he was named the election chief and then Prime Ministerial candidate. What has punctured that cocky certitude? Chasing a discredited turncoat is surely not symptomatic of a party blazing a trail? One knows that in politics one plus one sometimes equal eleven or that Paswan does influence 6% of the vote in Bihar. It is also possible that Modi, after floating in cloud nine, is being brought down to earth. It is not a secret that a Modi Prime Ministership is possible only in the event of a landslide. Since a landslide appears elusive on current showing, Sudheendra Kulkarni may be right. He wrote some months ago that an NDA-II requires another Vajpayee like figure. Modi, surely, is not that figure. Supposing Paswan had just said that his “Lok Janshakti Party is now part of NDA”, he would have left room for speculation: who is the PM candidate in the NDA of his perception? But he has been asked to put his imprimatur on an unambiguous statement. “LJP is now part of NDA, and Modi is its PM candidate.” Paswan once marketed himself as a “secularist”; he would probably consider himself a “realist” now. The difficulty with Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav is that he persists in wearing his secular cloak as if Muzaffarnagar did not happen on his watch. The past year when his son Akhilesh Yadav has been the Chief Minister, there have been countless communal riots. So keen is the CPM in keeping afloat the eleven-member non- BJP, non-Congress front of reasonably muscular regional parties, that in this grouping Mulayam Singh with his dismal record is being feted as God’s gift to Indian secularism. Meanwhile, which glory are the Congress leaders covering themselves with? On this, more later. These then, are the leaders on our shelves. Over decades we have grown accustomed to them. It is the singular contribution of AAP that the public no longer feels hemmed in and suffocated by a restriction on choice. There is now either growing revulsion or, at best, indifference towards the traditional politician. If this variety of politician were to turn up at the theatre I mentioned at the outset, he would be ignored. It does not require rocket science to guess who would invite the loudest applause if Kejriwal too were in the audience.