Raj Thackeray MNS Gunda

Come election time and our neta babus toss all inhibitions aside to indulge in the most outlandish gimmicks… cheesy enough to make even hardened fame-hustlers like Sherlyn Chopra and Loudmouth Sawant duck for cover.

With the Maharashtra Assembly elections just around the corner, our MNS chiefs seem to have traded their brains and sensibilities for those of 2-year old, tantrum-throwing spoilt brats.

First in line is Chief Minister Ashok Chavan who called Raj Thackeray a ‘croaking frog’. Not to be outdone, Raj Thackeray retaliated in kind, mincing no words as he called Uddhav Thackeray an ‘aitya bilawar nagoba’. For the uninitiated, his flowery language can loosely be translated as ‘a snake who always claims a readymade home, instead of toiling for it’. Interesting, huh?

Well, there’s more where that came from.

Uddhav Thackeray decided to hop on to the bandwagon as well, but rather than poke his pudgy fingers at more ‘powerful, better-connected’ opponents, he turned the tables on himself by refusing to comment on the Congress-NCP alliance, claiming that ‘he would be put into a cage like a rat’ if he dared to raise his voice of dissent.

By now, we have a rat, a snake and a frog. Goodie! What’s next?

Having run out of animals and reptiles to draw inspiration from, our netas turned to not-so-clever tongue-in-cheek repartee. Uddhav Thackeray leads the brat pack by cheekily stating that Raj isn’t ‘a superman, but a supari man’ (read: a contract killer).

And if that wasn’t creative enough, our MNS chiefs also resorted to cheap potshots about their opponents’ health, citing imaginary medical problems. Case in point being MNS leader Shirish Parkar who merrily called for the resignation of BJP Union Minister Ram Naik, stating that he needs regular blood transfusions. Logical enough, one would say, except that no-one, apart from the astute Mr. Parkar seems to have this detailed first-hand insight into Mr. Naik’s health woes… and this includes Mr. Naik himself!

With all this strategic name-calling our elections seem more like a free-for-all, mud-slinging bitch-fest… which is rather alarming considering that these immature, juvenile squabbling babu-log are responsible for making many life and career-altering decisions. But then, given our age-old legacy of uninhibited drama and exaggeration, what’s life without a Bollywood-style masala… eh?