Tempers runs high amidst low-key campaign

KARNAL: The breeze is cool, thetempers are high amidst low-key campaigning in this parliamentary constituencydominated by Punjabis and Brahmins. While early morning showers inthe region on Wednesday proved a blessing for the political workers who havebeen working hard to give a fillip to their electioneering, farmers in generalare a bit upset because their harvested wheat crop has become wet and they areunable to take it to the mandis.In a village near Nilokheri, whenthis correspondent asked Vijay, a farm helper,if he would do electioneering forthe party of his choice once the harvesting was over, out came the reply" Arreybhai,toom apna kaam karo, aur moojhe aapna karnei do"(O, brother, please go awayand do your work, and let me do my job). Though Vijay''s reply wasenough to convince anybody that he was least interested in the election, yetthis correpsondent persisted and asked him as to why the election scene was sodull in his village. He smiled , left his job and took this correspondent to oneside saying,"campaigning will pick up in the last six or seven days and more andmore political leaders will start visiting the villages".The pollscene in proper Karnal is no different from that this correspondent happened toexperience in rural areas. The city is bereft of usual colour of buntings,posters and banners carrying the pictures of political leaders like Atal BihariVajpayee and Sonia Gandhi. Of course one finds a little bit of hustle and bustlearound the offices of various political parties . These offices arewell-decorated with buntings and one can see party vehicles blocking the mainroads.To begin with almost all political parties have focused theirattention on villages where their leaders attend small "nukard" meetings. And inthe evening, on their return these leaders start campaigning in urban areas. Ifthe presence of party flags and buntings are an indication, the BJP is certainlyin the lead as far as electioneering here is concerned.Most peopleagree that one reason for it is that the BJP announced the candidature of IDSwami nearly a month before the selection of candidates of other parties. TheCongress candidate was announced only this week and as such the party is stillbusy organising its poll offices in the region. Besides, the party workers areupset over the High Command''s decision to field Arvind Sharma who is beingdescribed in most political circles here as an outsider.ThoughKuldeep Sharma, who is being described here as Congress rebel candidate, hasentered the fray as an independent candidate, and has launched his electioncampaign in full earnest, BJP activists reveal that Arvind Sharma camp is tryingits best to persuade him to withdraw in his favour and all sorts of allurementsare being offered to him.These activists strongly feel that theCongress would finally succeed in appeasing Kuldeep and he may withdraw infavour of official candidate. It is felt in political circles here that the realcontest between the Congress and the BJP will start the day Kuldeep decides towithdraw, though at present ID Swami has a slight edge over Arvind Sharma.