Only time will tell whose campaigning pays off this time around.
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The election campaigning in various parts of the country makes me recollect an incident that brings to the fore the power of campaigning.
Years ago, one day, in the middle of an unbearably hot summer, my parents and I were travelling by car, on a road on the outskirts of a city. Though the road was deserted, we halted at the traffic lights when the lights turned red. The scorching heat of the sun blazing down at us, through the windowpanes of the car, competed vigorously with the breeze of the car’s air conditioner. On the deserted road, as we waited impatiently for the lights to turn green, a solitary car came and halted beside ours. We paid no attention to it, until my father chanced to look in its direction. He told us that in the car next to ours sat a politician, who back then was a political novice.
When my father greeted him, I looked sideways in his direction. The politician was sitting in the rear seat of the car and was reciprocating the greetings with folded hands, a slight bow, and a gracious smile. His security guard was beaming with happiness and pride at his benefactor having been acknowledged by us.
He didn’t seem like a politician. He just seemed like a common man in a car, who we happened to see and smile at, at the traffic lights, and who was smiling back at us. Who knew that he will become the Chief Minister someday? I wondered where his car was headed to that afternoon on that deserted dusty road that seemed to lead nowhere. “He must be campaigning,” my father said. No wonder even the remotest of places contributed to his winning mandate.
That summer afternoon, when the lights turned green and his car overtook ours, I realised that he was travelling without a convoy, unlike other politicians do. His car was the only car, apart from ours, which had stopped at the traffic lights on that deserted road in the scorching sun. His early solitary campaigning paid off.
Only time will tell whose campaigning pays off this time around, but I will always remember my tryst with the future Chief Minister on one of his remote campaigning trails. And I will also remember how that little incident made me understand the utmost importance of campaigning and reaching out to the people, no matter how far away they are.
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