Janta's United ,Modern & Liberal Awaaz, JUMLA , a national political party dedicated to making public life swacch and swatantra was in jitters. With 2019 Lok Sabha elections less than two years away, the party had not yet picked on a Prime Ministerial face to challenge the puissant, Narendra Damodardas Modi. Meanwhile, Mr Modi was using his redoubtable MA (entire political science) credentials to telling effect, voraciously hogging up national political space to pre-empt any challenge.
The party's Marg Darshak Mandali, MDM, was now in session, soul-searching. Fifty two pensive heads , the party's creme de la creme, brooding, brainstorming, belabouring for three hours had failed to zero-in even on a clutch of likely names. Of what use a whole life-time spent scraping the bottom of an empty cask. The inevitable soon dawned on the grizzled veterans. There was none. Mr Modi stood leagues in front of any competition.
Then Urja lifted the gloom ! It was a stroke of good fortune that this promising young neta from down under had been admitted into the group, almost all geriatrics. Urja was blunt, if we don't have one, let's hire one through a public tender. Not too outlandish an idea if one reckoned the rivulets of netas flowing into each others' parties, one that broke into torrents in pre-poll times. Wasn't it much the same thing , without ,of course, the public tender stuff ? Urja's Scheme was transparent ,not subterranean like the way Amit
Shah went about recruiting to fill gaps in BJP's talent pool.
Shah went about recruiting to fill gaps in BJP's talent pool.
Finally, the party was sold on the idea. A committee headed by Urja was tasked to workout the modalities and come up with a potent prime ministerial face with utmost expedition. Urja was now a man possessed, within a week Notices inviting Expression of Interest ,EOI, from Indian passport holders with the following traits, a list not too long to seem prohibitive, appeared in all prominent dailies .
Must qualifications
- be bearded. The three dark horses ( IK Gujral, MM Singh and ND Modi ) who leapfrogged more illustrious party colleagues to political stardom, all had it.
- be endowed with that veritable political aphrodisiac- risen in life from an obscure humble origin. (It never fails to evoke instant sympathies of the multitude of poor in India and invests the man effortlessly with a pro - poor halo. And that matters, the poor have numbers. ). Any 'poor' vocation like majdoor, khomchawala, paanwala ,doodhwala, peanutwala ( remember, a 5-year old Jimmy carter, ex US Prez, sold boiled peanuts on streets)....... will do. (Not chaiwala though, it's already taken up)
- be a powerful orator, capable of rabble-rousing audiences to sufficiently high emotional pitch, enough for faith to supplant their reason. Must be a consummate practitioner of the art of rhetoric, spin, bollywoodian innuendos and double entendres ( not pun , that is too suave ), subtle subterfuge.....and the art of
- exciting pathos by words, bodily gestures.
- be able to cold-stare down one into meek submission. A visage with no-nonsense, business-only signposts desirable, it adds aura.
- be nattily dressed, and at all times. With Mr Modi making fashion statements once too often, sporting Kurtas with holes in pockets is courting disaster.
The response was a virtual deluge. After all ,governance of the most populous democracy, the fastest growing economy in the world was at stake. Evaluation would be a humongous affair, besides time consuming. The committee desperately needed a Newton idea . The ever resourceful Urja gave them one- an innovation on E-auction.
Applicants, whose EOI passed preliminary scrutiny, were to participate in an e-auction. At start, they will log into an auction website and key-in one measure they felt would endear them to the masses and lead to people gleefully voting them. Only the measure first keyed in would be recorded, others blocked off and erased. The next bidder would bid only if he agreed to do what the previous bidder promised AND his own distinctive measure . In a way the bids would be consolidative. The auction would proceed till no fresh measure is added.
Applicants, whose EOI passed preliminary scrutiny, were to participate in an e-auction. At start, they will log into an auction website and key-in one measure they felt would endear them to the masses and lead to people gleefully voting them. Only the measure first keyed in would be recorded, others blocked off and erased. The next bidder would bid only if he agreed to do what the previous bidder promised AND his own distinctive measure . In a way the bids would be consolidative. The auction would proceed till no fresh measure is added.
On the appointed date ,the auction opened and bids came in thick and fast.
The first bid : No beef , No goat and sheep meat too. Only horse
meat will be allowed because Vedic rituals sanctify horse sacrifice in aswamedha yagna.
meat will be allowed because Vedic rituals sanctify horse sacrifice in aswamedha yagna.
Pat came the following bid : Policy making to be metamorphosed to a genuine,participative lok niti. People will decide the GDP growth they want. Once decided , CSO will make the necessary data adjustments, including change of base year, methodology, the extrapolation parameters used to account for material economic activities for which no data is collected etc etc etc. Even past data could be revised to align expert's forecasts with popular demands. Non achievement of GDP growth targets will be a thing of the past.
Now things were really abuzz.
Next bid : Ban all paper notes. Only bitcoins transactions to be legal contracts.
Next, next bid : All neighbourhood policing jobs including crowd
control to be outsourced to vigilante groups. Cops only for crime investigation and providing A to Z security cover for politicians , corporate and Hindu religious honchos.
control to be outsourced to vigilante groups. Cops only for crime investigation and providing A to Z security cover for politicians , corporate and Hindu religious honchos.
Next.1.Next bid : Ensure a corruption free India. No Lok Pal , no FIRs against govt officials, politicians unless approved, unanimously, by the Anti-corruption Crime Heads Authority, ACCHA. that included the PM and held office at his pleasure.
Next.2.Next bid : RPA to be amended to permit MLAs, MPs not belonging to the ruling party at Centre to freely migrate to it without incurring disqualifications.
Next.3.Next bid : A new Ministry of Truth to be set up. It will recall print and electronic versions of all Indian history texts ever written for scrutiny. All 'untrue' texts will either be deleted or altered by educationists in the ministry to reflect ' truth' . Falsehoods like Akbar the Great , instead of Maharana Pratap the Great , won't be tolerated any longer. After such redactions the books will be reissued as the original texts of the authors. Those objecting will be sent to Pakistan .
Next.4.Next bid: Special treaty with Pakistan for interchange of ' inconvenient citizens.' For example, those who can't live without beef in India to be exported to Pak and those who can't live without eating pork to be imported from Pakistan.
Next.5.Next bid: A new Ministry of Love to channel love in right directions- increasing Hindu fecundity, suppressing that of other communities to restore proper 'demographic' balance. 'Errant' Love to be 'discouraged' .
Next.6.Next bid : The ' grammar of silence ' for victims of domestic atrocities and 'idiom of heartbreaks' for victims of ethnic terror abroad approach to be reversed to ' idiom of heartbreaks' for domestic victims, a 'grammar of silence' for victims abroad. After all ,the latter is the responsibility of respective states .
Next.7.Next bid: Acronyms will be made the official lingo of government. A wing in the Dept of comm. , GYAN ( get your acronym now) , will engage full time in churning out real catchy ones. For example, an officer approving a project would sign off as GAGA -Government Approves Go Ahead. If not , he may write NADA -Not Approved Do Again. Measures to aid poor would be called SOPS - stamping out poverty schemes and sops to promote business would be called GIFTS , government incentives for trade schemes ......stuff like that . So scintillating !
Next. 8. Next: Dairying will be made a national endeavour, MUD , aimed at boosting national production of Milk, Urine (gau-mutra) and Dung (gobar). Every employee, serving or retired, in govt, PSU, or institutions receiving govt support/funds/grants to maintain a cow. Milk cooperatives to specially monitor quantities of MUD received daily from these privileged people so that there are no defaults.
And there were no more bids.
Next. 8. Next: Dairying will be made a national endeavour, MUD , aimed at boosting national production of Milk, Urine (gau-mutra) and Dung (gobar). Every employee, serving or retired, in govt, PSU, or institutions receiving govt support/funds/grants to maintain a cow. Milk cooperatives to specially monitor quantities of MUD received daily from these privileged people so that there are no defaults.
And there were no more bids.
The party heaved a sigh of relief. At last they had found their Man Friday. The winner , an Indian passport holder from Wembley area of London, name withheld for obvious reasons, was asked to rush to Delhi. It wasn't a beaming winner ,though, that met the jubilant plenum members. Looking forlorn, morose he wailed, "my name has been struck off the voters list". He knows not why .
A huge shock . The special plenary session convened to make the grand public announcement lay in ruins. But not the irrepressible Urja !
" We haven't lost but gained much from the auction. Let's have one more. This time the minimal required standards from applicants would include all the promises made in the last auction. " ,he said
Last heard , auction notice was due within the next few days .
