INDIAN POLITICIANS are turning to “godmen”, astrologers, stargazers, soothsayers and clairvoyants to help them emerge vic-torious in the country’s ongoing general elections.
Hundreds of mendicants and yogis or religious men known for “delivering” electoral successes are dusting off their cosmic calendars and “organising” the heavens through special and expensive prayers for their politician clients, desperate to prevail in what is emerging as a tight contest for the 545-member Lok Sabha (lower or elected house of parliament).
“The greater the uncertainty, the more the need for astrologers as guides into the unknown,” says a soothsayer who has ably “guided” many MPs through the complex maze of Indian politics and elections.
Rough estimates indicate that the turnover for the astrology-related industry in these elections is worth over Rs6 billion (€93 million).
The first of five rounds of Indian polling took place last week and the final phase is on May 13th. Results will be declared three days later in what many pollsters predict would be an uncertain outcome. And in this prevailing ambiguity, political aspirants neither travel nor campaign unless their “celestial minders” declare the exact moment propitious.
There are few Indian politicians who do not employ a string of astrologers, palmists, numerologists or occultists who dominate their every public and private move especially ahead of elections.
Whether they believe everything their astrologers tell them is another matter. But as one senior MP from ruling Congress Party-led alliance said there was no “celestial” advice he would forego. Along with seeking divine intervention for electoral deliverance, candidates are pursuing bizarre campaigns to attract voters’ attention.
In politically crucial Uttar Pradesh province east of Delhi, some candidates resort to magic tricks, while others hire circus acrobats to supplement their campaign.
But Ranjan Yadav contesting the Gorakhpur seat in Uttar Pradesh, has hit upon an even more novel gimmick of wooing voters by seating himself on top of a bier that is borne through the town’s teeming streets.
To add to his wackiness he has set up his office in Gorakhpur’s cremation grounds where funeral pyres burn around him day and night. He claims that by campaigning this way he will wake voters to the reality that if they cast their ballot for the corrupt and inept politicians of the established parties, they are as good as dead.