DECENCY IN PUBLIC LIFE - 4

12th April 2009.

Dear Fellow-Travellers,

This morning I went to the “Meet Your Candidate” programme at Seva Sadan near Gamdevi Police Station. I had made a mention about it yesterday in my mail. Let me give you a brief feedback of what transpired.

The meeting was scheduled to begin at 10.30 AM. Hats off to Meera Sanyal (Independent), Dr. Mona Shah (Professionals’ Party of India) and Bala Nandgaonkar (MNS) for being there on time.

A complete Thumbs Down for unpunctuality to Mohan Rawle (SS-BJP) and particularly to Milind Deora (Congress) for taking the electorate for granted and coming at their fancy.

Now the gory details:

The Moderator explained that each candidate is being given 3 minutes to introduce himself/herself, followed by a question or two from the Moderator, after which the audience would be allowed sufficient time to question the candidate.

Bala Nandgaonkar (MNS), with 42 pending court cases according to mumbaivotes.com, requested that he be allowed to talk first as he had another meeting to attend. This was a clear and a blatant deception. He remained upto 1.15 PM. Clearly, he wanted the maximum time and succeeded in hoodwinking the organisers into giving him that mileage. But let me tell you what he said. He said he stood for COMMUNAL HARMONY!!! And his motto was THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY! Wow, I thought, did I hear something about the leopard and his spots? And he wanted to devote his time for Mumbai’s security.

So our Moderator asked him what plans he had for improving our security. Mr. Nandgaonkar was silent for a few moments. Obviously, he had no idea about security measures. So he gave us priceless information that Maharashtra had a 720 km coastline, that it was unjust of people to brand the police force as corrupt (they also had families to maintain), that he was elected to the Assembly three times, that he was recognised as Best MLA (??), that he was Dy. Home Minister, and that he had very cordial relations with his constituents else, he asked, would they have elected him? So much for his answer. The Moderator next asked him whether he had read this morning’s papers that the police had not been paid for months. Yes, indeed he had! And it was terrible that the police were not paid on time because they too had families to support.

The audience was now invited to ask questions. Somebody said that he had not answered the questions put to him by the Moderator. Our candidate was flummoxed. Someone then posed a question in Marathi to which Mr BN replied in Marathi, which invited a comment from someone (I suspect, from the same group) that the reply should have been in Hindi, to which Mr BN retorted that he had demonstrated his knowledge of Hindi and that the questioner being in Maharashtra should know Marathi. Now the pandemonium began: Marathi vs Hindi vs English! Inconvenient questions were completely sidetracked, Mr BN forgot that he was standing for Parliament and not for the State Assembly, and the police had to be called to rein in his supporters, fans and hangers-on.

The Moderator soon realised that an hour was lost, and so he invited Meera Sanyal and Mona Shah to introduce themselves and field the questions. This they did with aplomb, with dignity, with decency and in a few short minutes gave us the benefit of their individual agendas and manifestos. Both ladies come with an impeccable track record of education, work experience and service, and both were highly impressive. What came through was their sincerity – no beating about the bush, only their vision for the city if elected. If Mona Shah had oratorical skills and was equally comfortable with Hindi and English, Meera Sanyal was precisely articulate and completely focussed on her agenda for change. Unfortunately, these two young ladies had their time curtailed because of the excess time taken by Mr BN.

Mohan Rawle (SS-BJP), who had come in the meantime, was next. Again, a long-winded discourse on his popularity which resulted in him being elected as MP five times in a row, how a single discussion with Laloo Prasad Yadav resulted in crores being disbursed for the local railway network and how – and this is something! – he had camped for 3 days in a row at Nariman House when it was captured during the 26/11. Everybody has seen me on TV, he said. Frankly, I hadn’t. I saw him and Mr. Gopinath Munde only on the last day after the final assault was over on Nariman House, creating a traffic jam by insisting on patting the backs of our NSG. Anyway, he showed us a letter of appreciation from the Naval HQ which he insisted on reading out, despite the Moderator’s and our pleas that we believed him. To ensure that we had thoroughly digested every word of this appreciation he distributed photocopies that he had got made to the already restive audience. Somehow he reminded me of the naughty schoolboy who finally got a letter of good conduct from the Principal. Cheers and even more cheers from his supporters, fans, and hangers-on. It was as though he had single-handedly warded off the attack from Pakistan! Not a word about his plans if elected.

By this time at 12.20 PM, Milind Deora (Congress) walked in to resounding booes and hisses. Somebody shouted why he had never shown his face these 5 years when he was a sitting MP, and thought of the electorate only when it was re-election time. The refrain was taken up, and Milind was allowed to speak only after repeated intervention by the Moderator. Stop this uncivilised behaviour, roared Milind. There he blows his chances with this audience, I thought. Milind claimed credit for the BRIMSTOWAD project, deepening and extending the lake catchment area and the RTI Act (which, I thought, was the brainchild of the quiet ex-armyman Anna Hazare, the second Gandhi). He promised to do more for the city, despite occasional cries of “Shame shame, no no”.

My conclusion? The established parties clearly came in for a severe drubbing. What was worse was that apparently at least 2 parties, the MNS and the SS, had brought in their bunch of saboteurs and trouble-mongers to upstage the inconvenient question and the other side. That was the distressing and disgusting part. Yatha praja tatha raja, as I wrote in my e-mail no.3, As the subjects, so the king. . . .

The point of optimism was the confidence the two lady candidates exuded. They were dignified, to-the-point and clear about their intentions to give us a change from the old stuff. They truly characterised Decency In Public Life, the title of these e-mails.

Somebody once asked: Whom do I vote for? Well, I know whom I am NOT going to vote for. My humble suggestion: pay attention to the Independents. They have the sincerity, and they will deliver. My request: please forward this to your friends, and PLEASE VOTE.

Yours sincerely,

Deepak Tralshawala