India: I became a Politician

(2nd January 2004)

"Breaking News! The daughter of Congress's party president Sonia Gandhi, Shreya Gandhi, has resigned from the party! She has formed a new party, Bullet Party(BP) under the bullet train symbol!"

No one expected this headline playing in every news channel.

With the 2004 Lok Sabha election just few months away, the poster girl of Congress, its Youth icon, declared her departure from the Indian National Congress and registered her own political party.

Even the members of the Congress party themselves didn't know about it, even her mother.

"We have just received the news that along with Shreya Gandhi, 25 members from the party have also turned in their resignation! Shreya Gandhi has called for a press conference on Jantar Mantar at 2pm today! We will continue covering this news, stay tuned on Zee News!"

Shreya Gandhi turned off the TV as she sighed in her hotel room.

A normal college girl once got the opportunity to witness Yamraj's favourite vehicle, Truck-kun, really, really closely. So close that she died then and there.

Thankfully, instead of reincarnating as a mouse, and not so thankfully, instead of reincarnating as a rich family's cat, she got reincarnated in the Nehru-Gandhi family. 48 years in past.

She was born on 26th December 1975 as the youngest kid of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi.

She isn't exactly like those reincarnators who become super cool and genius just because they are in the past, and have future knowledge. She never got to publish any research, any scientific theory, and didn't get into any reputed college like IIT or IIM.

Though, she did complete 10th by the age of 13 with 92%, and chose arts. After completing 12th by the age of 15 with 93%, she went to Harvard for management and political science using donations, knowing that she will never get into IIM.

She did however, certainly not plagiarize, started creating Naruto in 1994 and has published uptil Pain arc, after which she will start to change some major things. And her manga hasn't become as popular as the original series would have been.

Also, she got 10% in Apple, which isn't the trillion dollar company yet, but iPhone isn't really released yet.

In some years, she will become a billionaire, which will help in running her own party.

Anyway, after graduation, she returned to India, and wanted to start fighting in elections from the grass-root level, from Mumbai municipal corporation, but was denied by her mother. She didn't want the Gandhi family to start from anything below Lok Sabha.

Since she is the youngest daughter of Rajiv Gandhi, granddaughter of Indira Gandhi, and great-granddaughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, all being PMs for a good amount of time, she has a huge advantage.

Basically, everyone in the country knows her, more so because of Congress's PR showing her off as some kind of genius. Both Rahul and Priyanka don't have much interest in politics, so she has been promoted by the party a lot.

And Shreya is interested in politics because it is an easy job for her as long as she has the will to do good, and good people at hand. Most of the things that politicians want to do are done by civil servants like IAS officers afterall.

She is now 28, and it will be her first election. So, she decided to first leave Congress.

She wanted to build a party as she wanted from the ground up. After TMC and CPI, Congress is perhaps the most corrupt political party. And due to ruling the country for the majority of time, the party has a pretty dark history which most of the population isn't much aware of due to not having the internet and most of the media houses being in control of congress.

Those who cry about saving democracy forget that Congress had its own godi media. Whoever remains in power, media naturally leans towards those. Unbiased media is a myth that was created by powers to legitimise their rule and push their propaganda as truth.

Anyway, she will absolutely be welcomed in BJP with open arms, and if NDA(BJP's alliance) wins, probably handed some good ministry as well, since her joining BJP will be a very big blow to Congress.

But, she wants to start her party from the ground up, to be able to make rules as she wants. Not having powerful politicians with money and criminal records will be necessary for it. Plus, it will be very difficult to enter Kerala and Tamil Nadu with the 'Hindu fascism' rheotic, despite it being true for a huge chunk of BJP. While BJP is better than Congress by a mile, it does have the same problems as Congress, like corruption, appeasement politics, etc.

She is just 28 years old right now, practically a newborn baby in the world of politics.

And its precisely because she is a newborn baby, with a story of rebellion, and the whole country knowing her, she can afford to create her own party and most probably win too.

She has registered her party by the name of Bullet Party(BP), with 25 members from the Youth part of Congress that she deems not too power hungry, nor do have any corruption and criminal charges. They are mostly between the age of 18 to 25.

*NOKIA RINGTONE*

She looked up her phone, and it was her mother. She must have just gotten the news.

She ignored the call.

She got another call, and it was from Rahul.

She ignored it.

She put the phone on silent, and waited in her hotel room until she had to go to Jantar Mantar.

'I will need to buy a new house...'

Some hours passed, and it was almost 2pm. The media was at Jantar Mantar, and Shreya arrived in her car.

"Namaste! Thank you for arriving on such a short notice."

The press conference started in open sky as everyone started shooting questions.

"Why did you leave the party? Did some fight happen between you and the leadership?"

"Actually, I had wanted to contest in Municipal elections years ago, but was denied. I want to start from something smaller instead of directly Lok Sabha from a traditional constituency.

There is huge corruption within the Congress party, and I had proposed some solutions to it, like using only checks, disclosing from where money came, and where did it go. But the suggestion was called 'impossible' and ignored.

There are also many cases due to which I no longer want to be associated with Congress, since I don't think any reforms in the party are possible at this point.

I didn't have any fight with my family. But I don't want to associate with the older generations. What the Congress party has done is simply unforgivable."

"What has Congress done? Can you please shed some light to it?"

"Many things actually. Why didn't postmortem of very important figures, like Lal Bahadur Shastri happen? Why didn't congress provide protection to our scientists? Bhabha ji, Sarabhai ji, and so many of our scientists were assassinated.

And being a Kashmiri Pandit, it's absolutely unforgivable that Congress allowed the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits happen. It's been almost 60 years since our country got independence, but the nonsense of Article 370 is still there.

The deeper you dig, the more dark things will appear. Congress has done many good things, yes. We have a stable country without coups like many countries who got independence around our time did.

But, the Congress of today is no longer the Congress that played a huge role in our early years. And I don't want to be a part of it."

"So why did you not leave the party until now? Why wait for the elections being this close?"

"Many reasons. I have put forward my suggestion for transparency several times, but gave up any hope pretty recently. Moreover, the party was doing free publicity for me. I need to save money for the elections afterall. My party is just some hours old. I don't plan to get money from under the table, so getting funds will be difficult. Elections are expensive, especially for a new party."

"Then, why did you not join another party, like BJP?"

"No transparency."

"From where do you plan to contest in the elections?"

"This year, we will focus on Karnataka and Maharashtra legislative assembly elections, mainly Maharashtra. I myself will contest from Bengaluru, and if I lose there, from Mumbai in October's Maharashtra legislative assembly elections.

As for Lok Sabha, I myself won't contest, but depending on the number of people pass the entrance exam and interview, we will inform you about the number of constituency on which our party will contest.

Everyone who is watching this, I invite you all to get directly involved in nation building by appearing for our party's entrance exam this month in Delhi, I will declare the schedule and exam centre by the next week. We want competent, non-criminal, and willing people to join the party. The intention must not be to make extra money. The salaries, pensions and privileges that are given to any elected person is more than enough."

"Entrance exam? How will it be? What should be done to prepare for it?"

"Sorry, but that will defeat the purpose of the exam. I can't disclose it before the interview round ends. Any more questions? I have 5 more minutes to spare."

"When are you marrying!?"

"..."