Worse for the tear

Who would you say is a politician's worst enemy? In these days of Anna Hazare, you might be forgiven for saying it is the media or even the gullible public.

Who would you say is a politician's worst enemy? In these days of Anna Hazare, you might be forgiven for saying it is the media or even the gullible public. But no, in our intensive research into the matter, we, the maligned media, have found that the old adage, 'you are your own worst enemy' has found resonance with our politicians.

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Let us look at the election campaigns to the assembly polls which are not far from public memory, especially in the three states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal. Mamatadi feels that the Left has been helping itself to more than its share of rosogullas, not to mention a bit of mishti doi on the side when it comes to stalling investment, something that the sartorially challenged stormy petrel says she will make khichdi of when she enters Writers' Building. The Left feels that she was not on the watch when her fellow travelers had their hands in the till. In Kerala, old corruption cases have come to take centrestage, some as slippery as the palmolein one which the Left accuses the Congress of being out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Congress, not far behind, has sought to accuse the Left of having its finger in many pies, almost all of them lucrative.