They are rich, they are famous, they are powerful. Their debating skills are unbeatable, their ability to twist facts unparalleled, their talent for dramatising the mundane unmatched. Their ideology is as flexible as a snake’s spine, ethics never seem to hold them up, money drives them crazy.Together, they have everything that it takes to make the most explosive political combination India has ever seen. If ever there was an opportunity for them to lead the India of their, repeat their, dreams, it is now, what with Congress falling apart and BJP trying harder to fall faster and lower.
Move over poverty-stricken, value-driven LSP, – Lok Satta Party – your time is up at the starting block itself. Jayaprakash Narayan, the studios gave you air time but plain air was never going to get your political plane to fly. The fuel of values – probity, integrity, unity – that you put into the tank was never going to get it to even taxi on the runway. You were destined to remain in the hangar of your imagination while others were making their ‘Dreamliner’ built of and fuelled by stuff that the ‘unsuccessful’ secretly envy – that’s what they say – but publicly deride. All that they need to do now is to paint and unveil their gleaming machine. And unleash it on a despondent India.
Imagine Kaapi Zibal, I Cheetambaram, A-one Jeetley, Mu-salman Khurshit, Sookshma So-raj, Annoy Roy, Shikhar Gupt and Radias Hajdeep Sardard, Pir Sanghi and Burka Butt on a political stage, each others' hands firmly clasped and raised high in solidarity, nay, victory. The Terrific (Terrifying, if you are still awake) Ten Together! What an electrifying picture! one that will drive every television channel and newspaper to multiple orgasms of an intensity never witnessed ever, not even when Mahatma Gandhi picked up a fistful of salt in Dandi or when Nehru raised free India’s flag for the first time in Delhi.
India is ready for the LJP – the Lawyer Journo Party – the first such political outfit formally launched anywhere in the world, the first such official acknowledgement of the clout of opponents and adversaries who are effectively running India together, while pretending to be at each others’ throats. Lawyers fake-fighting lawyers in different parties, journos doing the same with journos in different media houses and also lawyer-politicians -- what a waste of quality hamam and precious national time.
Come on guys, give us this exciting party, a party with a real difference, a party that will party better than Vijay Mallya, fly higher than Kingfisher, and even make all poor Indians rich. By setting and selling a sexy “Zero” Poverty Line! Tell us why corruption is cool and how this nation is actually becoming richer faster due to multi-billion dollar scams because the corrupt are saints engaged in creating wealth for the country! Expose the honest who outrage only because they are jealous of the rich and do not have it in them to do anything constructive for India. Celebrate those who have billions in Swiss banks as great Indians who have saved all that money only for India and will bring it back the moment India needs it badly enough to beg them for it. Above all, present yourselves as the finest examples of India's genius for making money.
No existing political party will stand a chance in front of LJP! With the best legal and media minds working together in the political and media landscape to paint India in the most vivid and beautiful of colours, even as they laugh all the way to Swiss vaults, the new well edited India will start looking classier than a K Jo film, and those shouting “Lies, Lies” will be removed like black-and-white irritants of the silent film era. In this 24/7 movie, the hidden India will also quietly move up, though slowly – if the corrupt get so much richer, so will their maids and drivers. A raise of a hundred for every million is fair, no? – after all, how much do these poor people need, and what for?
The only problem – and this is almost insurmountable – with the launch of the LJP is the one that bedevils the Congress (after Rahul’s failure) and the BJP: who should be PM?
A-one Jeetley won’t give up his burning desire for Annoy Roy, no matter how much how much the latter may have pushed for him as a Bekaar Jhagdaalu Party (BJP) candidate. Why will 200 IQ Cheetambaram leave it all for the less gifted? Hajdeep Sardard tripped Roy once (Annoying him forever), will trip anyone given a chance, whatever it takes. Burka Butt has had enough of asking “What should I...?”; she would want to be the one telling now – doesn’t she have the highest numbers of followers on Twitter after Pir Sanghi who is, for now, in no position to claim the post, but won’t accept anyone else in that chair? Sookshma So-raj, for long in the shadow of Jeetley, would rather remain in BJP than let any one of them overtake her. Shikhar Gupt is not one to be underestimated by anyone anywhere, and Mu-salman Khurshit has The Trump Card that even Buka can’t use against him! Kaapi Zibal may have nothing going for him, but the magician with Zero will not just throw in the towel!
Can The Terrific Ten, then, not agree to becoming PMs by rotation for, say, six months at a time? No one will want to be the last one to take the shot – little juice and much headache will be left for him and, worse, he might never get there at all, as someone is bound to try and stay on and trip the rest!
Avarice is such a bitch.
There will be, alas, no LJP, it seems. India ain’t so, so lucky. It has to keep suffering them all where they are, just as they are!
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