Cong rally sans the frill and the thrill

SHILLONG, FEB 15:  The side shows were more colourful and interesting than the main show. That is how one can describe Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s insipid Congress election rally at Polo ground on Friday afternoon. The “frills” and the “thrills” were missing, so were the crowds.

A senior police officer, who obviously looked dehydrated since he was in the ground right from 6 am, said the “thrills” and “frills” are reserved for “madam”- read Sonia Gandhi- and the Congress prince and prime minister in- waiting Rahul Gandhi.

Half of the red chairs were empty, so were the Congress workers. The crowd could not have exceeded five thousand, which means that each city Congress candidates could not even manage to bring five hundred supporters from their constituency.

A sitting Congress legislator said that the party had asked each Congress candidate to bring about four to five thousand supporters. He complained that the three vehicles he had sent in each pocket of his constituency brought five supporters each.

This reporter spotted only Kong Wansuk Syiem, Sanjay and Sarita Laitphlang moving up and down the dais; of course former union minister of state and Shillong Lok Sabha MP Vincent Pala was also there.

Usually the dais is a place where you spot state Congress bigwigs including the SPG personnel wearing dark glasses prancing up and down, sometimes frantically. But all that was missing on Friday.

The SPG personnel who were present looked less threatening that those deputed during the visit of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. This reporter even managed to go right up to the dais, of course just before Singh arrived, to speak to Vincent Pala and on the way only one SPG personnel stopped, queried and allowed to go right up the dais.

Such adventure, which usually turns ugly as you have to muscle your way through the menacing looking SPG or tricked them into letting you walk right up to the dais, is unthinkable if either Sonia or Rahul Gandhi were the ones who were addressing the rally.

The zing was missing; to make it worse Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speech was so drab that it almost made you feel sleepy in Friday’s afternoon heat. Reading out from a prepared speech, Singh made no effort to even be fiery but was satisfied to religiously follow the script handed over to him.

The state Congress, it appears, did not put in efforts to bring crowds like it does during Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s election rally. But it is certain that the rallies that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are schedule to address in Jowai, Nongpoh, Nongstoin and Williamnagar on February 19 and 20 will just be the opposite, after all unlike Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress rank and file in the state and across the country knows the source of power. Ironically, it is not from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who the Congress workers say is a poor crowd puller. – By Tilak Rai