Politicians scramble for attention

NEW DELHI: A peculiar bug causes election fever. An amiable sort of bacillus that you can see coming but do nothing to avoid. You embrace it with all the fervour of a zealot, willing it to imbue your very being. If you are that animal called the poll junkie, that is. For the rest of us it is payback time.
But the junkie first. Already susceptible, he caught the bug on Monday evening as the Election Commission announced the schedule for Assembly elections in five states.Since then, he hounds the offices of political parties, exchanges notes with anyone who has a moment to spare and turns Cassandra at dusk. You can catch him then at the nearest watering hole handing out poll predictions.
The most popular one this week: Early Lok Sabha elections next year despite the BJP going blue in the face denying it. The fellow has a coherent argument. Elections, he insists, will be held long before they are due in October 2004, whether it''s the Congress or the BJP that comes out tops in the four major states – remote Mizoram doesn’t really get counted, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh are the big ones. If the BJP wrests these states from the Congress, it will call early elections to leverage the winning streak. And if the Congress does well, all the NDA allies will scramble to cut losses.
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