Ah, elections, dirty politics, and journalists getting into hot water. At least we’ll avoid having to blame the voting machines this time. Kerry and Bush have their counterpart in India, with Sonia Gandhi accusing the BJP leader of false propaganda and ‘betrayal.’ Ms. Gandhi was compared to, of all people, Monica Lewinsky!

Election antics, New Delhi and Washington.

An Indian friend, also called Sonia, sent me this report in the first week of May:

There was a lot of violence and booth capturing in Bihar. A few stray incidents in Kashmir as well. The NDTV group (a private TV station) actually showed us how their reporter walked into a booth and cast a fake vote. Unbelievable!
I was reading in the papers how the US didn’t like the concept of electronic voting. Pre election programmes showed us how tamper proof these machines were, but we saw a lot of them being tampered with, some with technical faults etc.

She ends on the note that it’s “a really filthy game!!!!” Elections can’t be very different.

(Sidebar on voting machines: Check Greg Palast’s book on ‘Voting Machine Apartheid’ that claims the machines in Florida were rigged! )

As of today, with Ms. Gandhi ousting the pro-business BJP, and the crash of the stock market, I am amazed at how the Western media is quick to cast Congress as a communist government. Today’s Wall Street Journal has an Op-ed piece on “India Dimming” suggesting that Gandhi’s coalition with Communist parties may put a ‘regressive stamp on economic policy.’ Tomorrow, I will ask Sonia to comment on Sonia, and the “India Shining” campaign of the outgoing Prime Minister that backfired. Stay tuned.