Nerve Endings Firing Away

Pramod Mahajan is no more. I am deeply saddened by this news as I considered Mahajan as the obvious next rung of leadership post-Advani in the BJP. His techno-strategies may have failed in the last elections but he was definitely a master planner; BJP will definitely miss him in planning their election campaigns. Apart from being a strategist, he was considered prime minister-material by some.

I first saw Mahajan perched atop a jeep’s hood canvassing for votes in 1984. I was a kid and hardly understood what the man was trying to be so forceful about. Probably 10-15 people had gathered around; most of whom were present just because they had nothing better to do. My mom and I hurried along as I looked back at the guy on the jeep. Obviously his speech didn’t change many minds (our family was a avowed Congress voter too back then) as Rajiv Gandhi riding a huge sympathy wave triumphed at the polls. Mahajan’s party got mere two seats.

I am no political pundit to analyze the change in Mahajan’s political fortunes but I’ll admit that he was better than most of his peers; at least superficially. Probably he would have gone on to better and grander things. Alas, the jealousy of a sibling will not let that happen now.