The best indication that erections are around the corner is that the Very Impotent Person rooms at airports around the country are chock-a-block full of politicians flying from hither to tither and back. Every politician worth his/her/its salt feels it is his/her/its god-given right to be able to use the VIP lounge which is actually just a dingy windowless room smelling strongly of Very Important Piss. But what the heck, it’s the thought that counts. These days, rival politicians find themselves sharing the same room waiting for their flights, and the back-slapping, leg-pulling, and guffaws emanating from the VIP lounge makes one wonder why we have a political crisis in this country.
Now that everyone and their grandmother is allowed into the VIP room, it is no longer enough of a status symbol for the High-and-Mighty Political Mechanics. What sets them apart is the right to be able to drive right up to the plane in their own SUVs and be allowed to take at least a couple of hundred kard karrying karyakartas to the tarmac to garland arriving knetas. Airport security rules don’t allow it, but wtf, this is a country where all rules are made by the Four Party Syndicate, so they can break it. As parties get into campaign mode in earnest, even second-tier leaders have started going right up to the plane to receive and send off their leaders. The top-most leaders are in the horns of a dilemma: how to set themselves apart from the hoi polloi? We hear that Brother Number One is getting his business tycoon crony to buy a personal helicopter just so he can one-up the rest. But one place PKD will not be choppering off to anytime soon is Rolpa, where those who voted for him last time have said they’ll garland him with shoes if ever comes near their Base Area again. The Dashos have said they will be boycotting elections, but apparently they will be fielding some candidates through proxy parties to try to defeat key Cashies. Rumour has it that the 25-year-old Baglung Maoist cadre, Padam Kunwar, who punched Awesome during a party rally last year, is going to be standing against him.
Ever since The Slap That Shook Nepal, PKD is not taking any chances with security. Under his instructions, no one is allowed near the Great Helmsman during his campaign rounds these days. A
video on YouTube shows an induction ceremony for defectors from the Dashos last month during which Awesome’s security detail can be observed holding on tight to every new cadre as they approach the chairman to receive a vermilion tika. Another YouTube video exposes Awesome’s real intentions behind taking part in elections could be even more damaging than the
Shaktikhor Tape.
Meanwhile, Brother #2 has decided not to contest elections from Gorkha #1 because in 2008 he got 48,000 votes from a constituency where there are only 42,000 registered voters this time. So he is moving to Gorkha #2. The Doc also got flamed by hate mail for a Facebook posting in which he suddenly turned into a rabid knationalist to lament the raid by Indian police in Nepali territory. If BRB has suddenly become an India-basher, it
can mean one of two things: the sun is rising in the west, or elections are drawing near. The clincher, however, must be Butt-rye engaging in a slanging match on Twitter, in which he lashed out by calling a top editor ‘a mere salaried journalist’ thus revealing his true class bias.
BRB still has a sizeable following but a comrade is known by the company he keeps and Brother #2 is beginning to notice that the dirt is beginning to rub off on him. BRB’s biggest liability, despite her remarkable earthworm-gathering capability, is the First Lady herself. Then, there are people like Baby Krishna Dhungel, a convicted murderer, whom Lal Dhwoj insists on protecting. Disgraced Ambassador Maya Devi is about to be declared persona-non-grata not just by Qatar but by her own country and BRB continues to mollycoddle the puerile plenipotentiary.
The War of the Hyphen and Bracket Baddies shows every sign of intensifying. The Cash are using the huge stash of hard currency war chest at their disposal to their advantage and putting the droopy rupee to good use by buying off key Dash central commissars. Not as well endowed, the Dashies are circling their wagons and are on an extortion spree, shaking down anything that moves: DDC secretaries, LDOs, school teachers, government ministries, and businesses. On Wednesday, they even left a letter at the Paris Hill HQ addressed to PKD asking him to support in cash or kind their effort to sabotage elections, failing which they threatened unspecified ‘bowtick carbuy’.