Talking Maya and clean politics

He is a staunch advocate for clean politics, but ironically belongs to a party fielding several candidates with criminal records.

He is a staunch advocate for clean politics, but ironically belongs to a party fielding several candidates with criminal records.

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Meet Kanwar Singh Tanwar (47), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate from South Delhi, whose ideology resonates with the voter, but is at odds with the party image.

But Tanwar knows his strength (read: clean record) and he won’t let irony get in the way of playing it up. On Thursday evening, he did just that during his campaign at Mehrauli.

Making direct references to the cases registered against the BJP candidate of the same constituency, Tanwar harped on the importance of voting someone with an impeccable record to power. However amusingly, in the same breath he also asked his audience to make “behenji (Mayawati) the Prime Minister”.

“Don’t let party loyalties dictate your decision this time. Spare a minute to scrutinise the candidate’s background and then vote. A criminal can never do any good for the country,” he said.

For the voter, Tanwar’s appeal lies in his philanthropic work, which strangely doesn’t find figure much during the campaign.

“Water is a big problem here and the incumbent MP hasn’t done much to address the issue. Tanwarji sends his tankers to help us. He also has mobile dispensaries, which he sends to areas like Chhatarpur and Mahipalpur,” said a housewife in the audience straining her voice to be heard over the loud applause and slogans.

During the campaign, there were enough signs to show that Tanwar had struck a note with the people present there — him being weighed in coins probably the strongest evidence.

But Tanwar should hope and pray that the voters don’t take him too seriously or he could end up hurting prospects of behenji.