Mumbai, As the Maharashtra Assembly election campaign cacophony climbs to a circus-like crescendo, many politicians resort to no-holds-barred attacks on their rivals, on public platforms, leaving the audiences in splits, riled and speechless at the same time. A few highlights:
1. Early in the campaign, a supremely confident Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis grandly declared in a rally that the elections are little fun as there is no ‘pehalwan’ (strongman) to fight in the opposition.
Stung by this, Nationalist Congress Party’s 78-year-old Sharad Pawar hit back saying that ‘pehalwans’ fight only with equals, not with – and displayed what is interpreted as a lewd hand gesture hinting at a panzy.
Not one to let an opponent have the last word, the 49-year old Fadnavis retorted saying he could have appropriately responded to Pawar’s gesticulation, but was reining himself due to his rival’s advanced age.
“I will not resort to such ‘Natrang’ style tactics’ It does not suit me,” Fadnavis declared grimly, with a velveted warning that the election results on Oct. 24 will prove who is the real ‘pehalwan’.
Incidentally, “Natrang” (2010) was a superhit Marathi film — based on the travails of Maharashtra’s dying breed of ‘Tamasha’ folk artistes — in which National Award winning actor Atul Kulkarni had portrayed the taboo-ish title role.
2. A few days ago, former union home minister and chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde casually remarked in Solapur that both allies — Congress-NCP — should merged as they are “tired and weary”.
While the NCP promptly denied any such plans, the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena pounced on them with Uddhav Thackeray asking: “Tired? Tired of what? Eating (implying, corruption)??”.
