JOIN USUnforgettable stories from the election beat
Journalists on the election beat witness fierce contests, and are sometimes caught in the crossfire. They share some vignettes from their reporting adventures.
Choked by a mob
Photojournalist V Sreenivasa Murthy and I were in KR Puram when we got an alert that violence had broken out in Hoskote over booth capturing. This was in 2004, when Assembly and parliamentary elections were held simultaneously.
We rushed to the spot in the office vehicle. When we reached, we saw JD(S) supporters. They were drunk. When my colleague started clicking their photos, they pinned him down, kicked him around like a football, and snatched his gold chain and bracelet.
Some people started chasing me. I ran for 200 metres and fell. A man tied a telephone cable that had snapped around my neck. Another loomed over me with a boulder in his hand. They abused me in the filthiest language, and tore my shirt. When somebody told them we were from the press, they let us go, saying “Get lost or we will kill you.” I ran for about 2 km like P T Usha. The driver, fearing for his safety, had parked the car far away from the spot. A villager riding a bike brought my colleague to the car. The mob had seized the camera but the villager volunteered to talk to the mob. We got the camera back.
I called the state police chief T Madiyal and lodged a complaint. Back in Bengaluru, I got a tetanus shot. The doctor spotted nail marks on my neck.
It later emerged that the JD(S) supporters had thought we were Congress workers. Two days after the attack, the JD(S) party president tendered an apology. The case never progressed. I did not follow it up either.
— K V Subramanya, associate editor, DH
‘A Banjara wedding and dial-up internet’
I was in the Gulbarga district to interview Congress leader Priyank Kharge ahead of the 2013 Assembly elections. I was given a remote location. I reached the place and waited in blazing heat — it was about 45°C. Kharge stopped his car, asked me to hop in, and said he had a wedding to attend. We drove for about 5 km and arrived at a Banjara wedding. The family was poor but treated us to lunch. I took the opportunity to ask them about their expectations from the elections.
I also remember the election coverage from Uttar Pradesh from the pre-mobile phone days. After typing my stories on the laptop, I would take it to the STD phone booth. Those were dial-up Internet days. We had to pick up a telephone cable and plug it into the laptop, dial the office phone number, and then email our stories. The telephone operators didn’t understand what journalism was, and would wonder whether I was using their line for ‘anti-national activities’. Sending stories after 8 pm was particularly challenging. In those days,
people used to line up at the booths to make trunk calls, which were cheaper at night.
— B S Arun, former deputy editor, DH
Woman in goods auto
In 2018, I saw an open goods auto arrive at a polling centre in Hebbal. An elderly woman was in it. Realising that she couldn’t walk, the election staff helped her get down, and escorted her inside. She cast her vote. The staff then booked a cab for her return. She could not fold her legs inside a normal auto, so she had hired a goods auto from someone she knew.
— Pushkar V, principal photographer, DH
Lots in a name
In 2008, I was in Gandhinagar, where rowdysheeter V Nagaraj was contesting. Other journalists and I were talking about him in a shop and the news reached his supporters.
They came up to me and raised their voice. They were probably offended because I had called their leader ‘Bomb Naga’, which was how he was widely known. Finally I did meet and interview him. And when I went to a slum to report on the public sentiment, people thought I was from a party and began pressing me for money. I ran and escaped.
— Y G Jagadeesh, reporting chief (Bengaluru), Prajavani
Personal support
In 2008, I saw a celebration different from what I have seen in Kerala, where I come from. I was reporting from a counting centre in Bengaluru. In Kerala, candidates are accompanied by cadres who cheer and wave party flags. Here, the circle of support and affection appeared more personal. Friends and wellwishers were rejoicing when their ‘anna’ won. I also saw some candidates quietly get into a car and leave before the counting concluded. They were going to lose, they had sensed.
— R Krishnakumar, assistant editor, DH
Passport photo, please
Business tycoon Vijay Mallya came out of the Vidhana Soudha after casting his vote in the 2010 Rajya Sabha elections. He was contesting that year. A photojournalist ran behind him, shouting, ‘Sir, passport, passport’. Mallya was startled and looked at his security. He thought the election office staff were asking for his passport, when, in fact, the photojournalist just wanted him to pose for a passport-size photo, or mugshot, as we call it.
During the 2016 Rajya Sabha elections, Gulbarga Rural MLA G Ramakrishna looked unwell, so Congress MLC K Govindaraj offered to help. He stamped the ballot paper on the former’s behalf, and started walking towards the ballot box. A JD(S) member raised an objection, saying the MLC was about to cast someone else’s vote. A commotion broke out. An electoral officer intervened. Finally, Ramakrishna cast the vote himself.
— B H Shivakumar, chief photographer, DH
Decorated booths
I was covering the Assembly elections in Shivamogga during the pre-EVM days. Villagers would decorate the polling booth with flowers and mango leaves and perform puja, and cook food for the election staff. They would do it voluntarily. But the Election Commission has now banned these practices. It was also not uncommon in those days to hear people boast that they had voted four or five times on the same day. Proxy voting, you know.
— S K Dinesh, senior photojournalist, DH
Costly temple visit
In 2004, JD(S) candidate A R Krishnamurthy lost to the Congress party candidate Dhruvanarayana by just one vote. In the following years, he would say he had lost because his wife and family did not vote in 2004. They had gone to a temple to seek blessings for him but had not been able to return in time to vote. Krishnamurthy is a three-time legislator from JD(S), but has not won any election after the 2004 defeat.
— N B Hombal, special correspondent, DH