(Image via intoday.in)
The warring constituents of the Janata Parivar, JD(U) and RJD, have finally figured out a fair mechanism to decide the seat sharing formula for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections. Candidates of the two parties will play a game of musical chairs to decide who gets to contest and who doesn’t.
The game will be moderated by the leader of another prominent Janata Parivar constituent, Mulayam Singh Yadav. Explaining the rules of the game, Mulayam said, “To begin with, we’ll arrange 485 chairs in a circle, and have every candidate for every seat from the two parties stand in a bigger circle around the circle of chairs. Then the usual musical chairs rules take over – every time the music starts, the candidates will start running, and when it stops, they’ll rush to take a seat. The candidate who’s left standing is out.”
“We’ll keep taking out one chair after every round until the last round when there’d be 243 chairs. Whoever manages to find himself or herself a chair, will be the final candidate!” said Mulayam with a triumphant smile.
According to sources, Patna’s Gandhi maidan has already been identified as the venue for the game, and is currently being swept by security personnel for bombs. A rule making committee comprising a section of top JD(U) and RJD leaders is framing rules for the game. “You cannot bring guns to the game. You cannot bribe the other candidate. You cannot physically kick someone off a chair. Regular stuff like that,” said a committee member.
The workers on the other hand, are identifying appropriate raunchy Bhojpuri numbers to be played during the game.
However, plans ran afoul when Nitish Kumar publicly suggested a new rule: Those who run around wearing a skull cap will be given an extra life. Every candidate from the two parties promptly agreed to this, resulting in complications in the rules of the game. Things got a lot messier when Nitish Kumar further demanded a few seats just for Mahadalits, prompting the other candidates to demand reservations for other castes in Bihar.
“We will now have several circles of musical chairs, their respective numbers decided based on the caste split up in the state. We are still working out how many such circles we’ll have, as we have to be careful not offend a particular sub-caste by not giving it its own musical chairs contest,” said a harried looking member of the rule-making committee. “And then there’s the extra-life rule for skull cap wearing participants… bhak budbak, I quit!” he exclaimed.
As things last stand, Janata Parivar leaders are now squabbling over the rules of the mechanism they framed to stop the squabbling over seat-sharing.
(With inputs from Ashwin Kumar)