Opinions and Editorials

Season 2 has just ended and for a little while, a phenomenon quite removed from the Indian Premier League (IPL) will prevail: silence. Think about it. Evenings free of Ravi Shastri hollering as if he has to make himself heard from South Africa to India minus the benefit of microphone or satellites.

While she frowns at alliances being forged and broken, and believes that her party will attain poll victory in the Lok Sabha elections without any outside support, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati has been a pioneer of alliance politics herself, albeit of a slightly different nature.

The preparations began long time back. The blame game, mud-slinging, and finger-pointing... even before that. General elections in India - one of the world's biggest and most baffling democracies - is a virtual circus that takes place every five years and amazes everyone with its myriad tricks.

Both in reel as well as real life, actor Sanjay Dutt has surprised everyone with his upfront honesty, despite every nasty thing he's done. He chose to play the 'baddie' in some movies and clicked superbly with the audience.

Only the second woman to become the chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit is one amongst the few Congress leaders who has scripted a success story for her party. Her able governance, clean image and transparent work ethics has won her voters' confidence. No wonder Dixit won a third chief ministerial term in the November 2008 Assembly elections.

Mamata Banerjee, founder and chief executive of the Trinamool Congress Party (Grassroots Congress Party), started her political career with Congress (I), and as a young woman in the 1970s, she quickly rose in the ranks of the local Congress group.

Ram Vilas Paswan, founder and president of the Lok Janshakti Party, started his political career with Samyutka Socialist Party, and was elected on its ticket to the Bihar State Assembly in 1969.

No matter who forms the government in June this year, Lok Sabha Elections-2009 will be most remembered for the rise of a demagogue from the folds of India's first political family that has won elections in post Independence India by waving the secularist card.

Elections in India wow many with the sheer enormity of the whole exercise. From the number of voters to the electronic voting machines - Elections in India are like the biggest reality show. Here are couple facts that add to the wow factor -