Bhabra

0.000 shakti party

Thirteen years later

Soft sun rays of the lazy October afternoon warmed the cotton of her blue sari. Sitting on the grass with folded legs, Madhu gently blew the air above her glass of steaming hot chai, its vapour fogging her much hated reading glasses. Once comfortable, she unrolled the newspaper she'd tucked under her armpit and carried out in the field.

Her distaste for daily news had only increased over the years. She avoided reading and speaking to the media much as she could, especially when she was in Bhabra.

But this one had been delivered on her doorstep via speed post. And now she was obligated to read it, given that Sunanda had gone to such lengths to draw her attention to it.

Her friend hadn't signed the package, for obvious reasons, but Madhu chuckled yet again at Sunanda's handwriting on top of the front page, right above the big bold Utopia letters spelling the name of The New Delhi Post.

"If he wasn't your friend, I would've killed him."

The angry scribble was a stark contrast to her dimpled face stretched in a glazed smile, covering the top half of the front page. Standing over a podium on a temporary stage erected for her rally, Sunanda's neck was adorned with thick garlands of marigold.

Madhu recognised the pale pink sari Nakul had gotten her the year before, its Durgapur silk giving her the radiance befitting for a politician of her stature. The picture was from her very successful Varanasi campaign two weeks ago, where her party had officially announced her candidature. Madhu's eyes moved to the article below it.

A Road Always Taken:

The Story of Shakti Party and its Matriarch's Brute Rise to Power

Madhu nearly knocked her glass of tea at the subheading. "Brute rise?" Leaning forward, she spread the paper on the ground and bent over it to avoid spilling more tea.

Anyone familiar with the recent trends developing in UP politics would not have been surprised when, on September 19, former MLA and veteran politician Sunanda Singh announced her run for the office of Chief Minister in the forthcoming Vidhan Sabha elections.

After a grand show of volunteering at the open kitchens of the Annapurna Devi temple, Singh, along with two other top leaders of her party—Nita Rai and Sakshi Kumari—launched the election manifesto of Shakti Party, with its central theme being "feed, create, innovate," promising a bold entrepreneurial model of governance with a basic security net in a state dominated by socialist parties.

Praised for her work in social welfare as the twice-elected MLA of Sakshinagar (West), Singh made headlines after resigning in her eighth year in office, causing a split in the Jan Shakti Party and taking 20 other MLAs with her to form her own Shakti Party.

Now, a year later, she seems all set to be the next chief minister of the country's most populous state, fighting uncontested from Varanasi (North) after leaving her home turf in Sakshinagar. As her former party struggled to recover from the split and the subsequent scholarship subsidy scam (first broken by The New Delhi Post in April this year), the rising matriarch hurried to fill the leadership void it left in UP. Not holding back, she has brutally criticised her former colleagues—including her political mentors—after her resignation from party ranks.

While this kind of backstabbing and betrayal is not unheard of in the intricacies of UP politics, the average observer is left to wonder just how far would Sunanda Singh go to keep power once she gains it.

The initial years of her career, as the Panchayat head of an obscure village in Sakshinagar, are marred by allegations of mob violence (with her ex-husband being a victim too), abetting theft and dacoity, and the mysterious "accident" which killed her father-in-law... (cont. on pg 9)

"That fucker," mumbled Madhu, folding the paper. She barely registered the sight of the four grazing cows and three puppers of her deceased dog enjoying their playtime. Their dark blonde fur shone under the sun rays as Golu, the youngest of the lot, snuggled with Gayatri, nudging his snout in the middle-aged cow's rolls of fat.

It had been Madhu's idea to involve Javeri. Nakul had been vehemently against it. But Sunanda needed a scandal to officially quit JSP after being refused a larger piece of the pie.

Sunanda had the documents detailing the transfer of cash promised to marginalised school kids going directly into the bank accounts of her seniors. She'd been sitting on the scam for two years, waiting until a noticeable chunk of subsidy money had been taken. While that took two years, she quietly struck alliances with other, dissatisfied party members. Most were women.

The trade-off was simple. Sunanda would get an opening to launch her own party. Madhu would get dependable friends in the state cabinet. And Javeri would get more clout.

Except that slimy bitch casually hopped on the traitor train.

Yet, for some reason, there was a small smile on her face.

Well played Tarun. Well played. 

This was the original epilogue before I decided that Bhabra didn't really need one. But well, Idk, felt like sharing this now that the book has won WIA 2020 and I can't stop feeling grateful to you guys. 

Anyway, thoughts? Or theories (if you have any)?