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It’s raining CDs in Uttar Pradesh where preparations are afoot for the mother of all elections.

While the Mayawati camp has made thousands of copies of Amar Singh’s infamous phone conversations supposedly held with Bollywood stars and top industrialists, Mulayam Singh’s team has armed itself with CDs of the BSP chief addressing rallies with Hindutva poster boy Narendra Modi during the 2002 assembly polls in Gujarat.

Forget bijli, paani and sadak. Why should UP ask for bread when it’s being offered an audio-visual feast of salacious propaganda instead?

While their respective dirty tricks departments are vying with each other to churn out CDs, Mayawati has had a head start on the campaign trail with a massive rally in Lucknow’s Ambedkar Park.

Reports from the UP capital estimate that more than 10 lakh people attended the rally to make it Lucknow’s biggest political event ever. People were still coming after she finished speaking and had left the venue.

Apparently, the administration was so rattled by the size of the crowds that trucks and buses carrying her supporters were stopped several kilometers outside the city. But rally-goers just got off their vehicles and walked the rest of the way. Beat that one, Mulayam Singh.

Vajpayee had once mused when he was prime minister that he would like to be remembered for his poetry too, not just his politics. Well, the government in Goa seems to have decided to honour his sentiments.

The Goa secondary and higher secondary education boards have included Vajpayee’s oft-recited poem, Jung na Hone Denge, in the Hindi Literature syllabus for Class IX students.

The poem was written almost 40 years ago as a cry for peace. An irony really, considering Vajpayee’s government conducted a nuclear test many years later. Another irony: the felicitation of Vajpayee’s poem comes from a Congress government, not a BJP one.

Vajpayee the literateur has got recognition from another educational institute, IIT Kharagpur. It’s invited the former Prime Minister to read his poems at a poetry evening.
As it happens, the title of another poem by Vajpayee has been chosen as the theme of the event, Kya Khoya, Kya Paaya. Unfortunately, the former PM’s health doesn’t permit the two-and-a-half hour road journey from Kolkata to Kharagpur so unless a chopper can be arranged, he’ll have to give it a miss. But IITians may get a delightful substitute in Lalu Prasad Yadav who has also been invited to enliven proceedings.

What’s this? Vijay Mallya seems to have developed a keen interest in cricket. He lent Sharad Pawar a helping hand recently when the latter found that he was unable to attend an important ICC meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, because of commitments in Parliament.

The meeting was slated for March 1, the day after budget presentation and the day before Pawar’s question time in Parliament. Mallya gallantly offered to fly him out in his private plane.

So, immediately after Chidambaram finished his budget speech, Pawar, accompanied by Mallya and Rajiv Shukla, drove to the airport, flew to Cape Town in 12 hours, attended the ICC meet and got back in time to face Parliament.

Although Mallya is a Pawar friend, observers of cricket politics are little surprised by the gesture. Speculation is rife that the liquor baron is eyeing a role in cricket officialdom (through the Karnataka Cricket Association maybe?) after losing to Cyrus Poonawala in the Royal Western India Turf Club election.

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net