Election <i>dhamaka</i> in India ... our sense of proportion!

LOK Sabha election in India is turning out to be pricey, spicy and high-stake contestation. It is literally becoming a head-turner. The repertoire of political banter, vote-catching maneuvers and last-minute attempted reworking of electoral equations between parties, groupings and alliances is coming into full play.
From self-serving books publication pillorying Manmohan Singh by people who claimed 'they knew' because of their proximity to him through dynastic war of words in the Gandhi family to playing the communal card cutting both ways, the arsenals of political parties are gearing up on all four cylinders against each other.
Sanjay Baru, once media advisor to the PM, launched his book -- The Accidental Prime Minister -- the making and unmaking of Manmohan Singh. As if that was not enough, former coal secretary P. C. Parakh released his Crusader or Conspirator? -- Coalgate and Other Truths. The essence of their treatises is summed up by the titles of their books themselves.
Commercial interests have driven the book writing surge -- the timing is expedient, pollsters predicting a BJP win over Congress with its record of ten-year incumbency. Manmohan's last term has seen a downslide in economic growth from what was galloping in the previous tenure.
Manmohan Singh's daughter Upender Singh came in defence of her father. She called Baru's book as stabbing in the back, a betrayal of trust and mischievous ploy devoid any iota of morality. Priyanka Gandhi, who with a fiesta, is campaigning for Rahul Gandhi called Manmohan Singh a Super Prime Minister. Chidambaram, finance minister in Manmohan's cabinet, said of Manmohan that “by nature he is serious, somewhat absent-minded and shy.” He debunked the perception about Manmohan not being his own man and that absolute power was wielded by Sonia Gandhi. Separating the chaff from the grain, argued he that political decisions used to be taken by Sonia and the party while governance was left to Manmohan, adding he said the PM hardly ever went to 10, Janpath.  
Conflicts between the two branches of Gandhi family have come out in the open as perhaps never before. Varun Gandhi, son of Maneka and late Sanjay Gandhi, is contesting the election from Sultanpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh on BJP ticket. Varun's cousin Priyanka counseled the people to bring her cousin to the right path. When Varun reacted to this saying that his big sister had crossed the Laxman Rekha, the line of decency, Priyanka quipped: “It was not a family tea party but a matter of ideological conviction.”
Senior BJP leader Uma Bharati said: “If BJP came to power, Sonia's son-in-law Robert Vadra would be arrested,” alleging that he was linked to many misdeeds. To this, Avishek Singvi, a Congress spokesman, said something profound: “There is freedom of expression in the country.”
A word about the stern manner in which the election was being conducted, keeping it free from anyone influencing voters through any leading comments. Recently at a party election meeting in Muzaffarnagar, Narendra Modi's close friend a BJP leader had talked of badla (reprisal), he was simply blacklisted by the commission. Similarly, when Samajbadi leader Azam Khan commented that India won the Kargil war through the contribution of Muslim soldiers, the Election Commission debarred him from campaigning.
A snapshot view of Aam Aadmi Party comes through the revelation that such a populist party having 200 contestants in Lok Sabha polls has 86 crorepatis among them!
Anna Hazare blasted the AAP chief Kejriwal for abandoning the post of Delhi CM and nurturing the ambition of becoming the prime minister of the country as he has fielded party candidates in various constituencies.
If in India all this is relevant during election, in Bangladesh post-election vituperative exchanges between the BNP and the AL that both parties are unnecessarily enmeshed in are holding us back from concentrating on crucial issues. Tareque Rahman's claims that Ziaur Rahman was the first president of the country and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was illegal prime minister in 1972 do not even deserve any mention, let alone any debate. Ridiculously, the BNP acting secretary Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir equated Tareque's sense of history with that of Cuba's Fidel Castro, as a deliberate ploy to create a controversy to ruffle AL's feathers. No constitutional expert is digging into the avalanche of books losing sleep on Tareque's pranks. Why should some AL leaders -- at all?
Are we to believe that grace and sense of proportion have taken leave out of the country?

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.
E-mail: husain.imam@thedailystar.net