Of Elections and elections

The last year at IITR. Whew! Time indeed flew by. But every year has been different in some sense or the other.
So this year, I got to see the underbelly of IITR's politics and it was not pretty. 
Last year, I purposely put my nose into this whole business. But this year I was unnecessarily dragged into it. So I had to endure another session of never ending gossip and tall tales.
You see, elections is all about ambitious guys who lack substance. For these people having dreams is enough for the claims of a post. The work done prior to the claim does not matter. Real politicians in the making indeed!

A primitive background. IIT-Roorkee, still more of a university has a Student Academic Council or SAC. Its members are elected from the various Bhawans. Each Bhawan has 6-8 constituencies depending on its size. Each consti elects a councilor. In addition there is a Bhawan Secy and Mess Secy. There are some back-door entries, like the council head of Hobbies section, secretary of the Cinematic Section and so on. The total strength is 85.

Let the story begin...

What matters in elections? Numbers right. But to get those numbers you either need to have a charismatic personality(which unfortunately none of the contestants have), or you must have really done some good(sadly this too) or you need to be part of a group. So you have groups of different branches, of castes(like SC's, its true and I am ashamed that this place is an IIT), of regions( like the Telugu speaking chunk)etc. All the regular political stuff. This happens every year and this year was no different. Only the faces change. So I have decided to just list down briefly all that I saw and well, what the hell, Its my blog anyway.

The Institute act:
So this year, I got to hear the names of some new crackpots acting as king-makers. So it was Akansh Dubey, Satish Bundelkar, Santosh and Alex, Gaurav and Pandey etc. Each comma separates the relative group. These relatively unknown guys whom I know of never competing and bringing in laurels of any sort displayed the best of what they got. At negotiation, threat and of course deceit. No acts please. Santosh's group is the haddu group(sounds cool isn't it), Gaurav and Pandey the TOC group. They have got another tool for threat. Then there is Satish's group of prep candidates. And I don't know what the fourth group's credentials are. Whatever. If these guys feel they have a lot more future at politics, then why the hell don't they back it up with some real selfless service and initiatives. Rather than just desiring some useless posts at the cultural events, because of pure ego or just want to eat into IITR's treasury. Can people get any lower?? So this was the insti scene.

The Huddu act:
Though I detest the word, all the Telugu speaking folks are referred to as huddus. So this year the goal was to make Saad the SAC President. And people have gone to great extents for this. Where ever promising Telugu candidates stood, the ringleaders are at their task of making the person sit down. So I heard of some very high probable candidates made to sit down so that some 'pacts' could be worked out. So there is Raj Kiran from Azad, Janardhan from Ravindra etc sitting down for no real reason at all. Saad finally became the SAC P. Well, somebody has to win after all right! Hope he does bring some change.
Then there is Sandy from Jawahar who desires to win just because he desires so.
To top it all, this huddu battle spilled onto even my constituency. An aspiring 2nd yearite, Venkat Praveen wanted my support. But the conflict was that Anand Jha who was my friend from 1st year onwards also stood up. So its my moral responsibility that I support Jha. Now the bigoted people don't understand do they. Afterall Praveen is a 'huddu'. Being a 'huddu', how can you not support him? LOL. Praveen even went to the extent of declaring that he wants to start a group and become like Satish. So much for aspirations.

The President act:
There was a controversy that Soumye had willfully thwarted Divye's attempt at entry into SAC via the Cinematic Section. Read DK's blog for what the controversy actually is. Both were aspiring for the presidents post. Moreover, there were rumors that DK was made to sit down even from the constituency after a careful plot. The result: C.S duals did not vote for their own candidate at the end. So much for branch unity.

The Branch act:
Politics always has a dividing tendency. Anyway with the atmosphere so charged up, people wanted to bring politics even into the selection of placement representative of our branch. I just don't understand the thought processes which go in their heads. No one I am sure can work more selflessly than Umesh. Everyone knows it. But then where is the thrill if there are no politics.

The Individual act:
I was impressed by a 2nd yearite's win at Azad. His name is Arun. Dogging all controversy, he adroitly managed to stay in the good books of everyone and even managed to come out of the elections victoriously. The point to take was that he didn't depend on the support of any of the various groups I mentioned above. There is a natural politician there, but lets see how many goods can he actually deliver.

In spite of all the ignoble things that happen during elections, elections do show one thing. The ability of people to gossip and spread news like wildfire. But alas! The new set of juniors have been properly trained on how to go about the elections. Catch as many juniors as you can. Form pacts and more pacts. Then ditch everyone but don't get ditched yourself. And the cycle continues.
If only had there been more nobility in the entire process and the candidates it would be such a rewarding experience. Moreover, the people who then get elected could bring about real change.