News started seeping in by the afternoon. The court had
rejected the only corruption case against the party supremo. This was a shocker
nonetheless. The case was flimsy in itself but the government dragged on the
case for years. The irony being, the judiciary which is said to be another tool
in the hand of the executive atlast dismissed the whole case. Millions of public
money flushed down the drain. There will be no one to keep the king maker
himself from ascending the throne. Then
started the festivities , garlands, sweets, bouquets. There were victory marches,
emotional speeches and everything needed to complete the picture.
Now the fate wasn’t
too willing to let the scene go picture perfect. That evening the father
of a student was hacked to death , thanks to the student’s affiliation to the
left wing politics. This was a totally unheard of incident and I was wondering
how the party would react. One one hand you had the festivities ready for the
leader liberated from corruption charges by a system you despised and on the
other hand you had a martyr and martyrs are rare to come by.
I was around the place when the ‘historic’ secretariat siege
took place. With the military flown there was an anticipation of historic revolution.
Thousands of party workers was driven in to the capital. There seemed to be a
certain probability of confrontation. The capital looked like a festive ground
for me with people walking here and there, buying stuff chatting in groups.
Suddenly there came a series of secret negotiations and the siege that was to
be pulled out only with Chief Minister’s resignation was called off suddenly.
The ‘revolutionary’ party workers, as soon as they heard the news, caught the
first bus out of town. With in an hour there was no sign of revolution
