The bypoll that put the mandate up for sale

Two constituencies where voters chose the Two Leaves symbol in April must vote again in October. Not because their representatives died. Not because of disqualification. Because the men and women they elected resigned, walked into the ruling party, and got renominated by that same ruling party on its own symbol. Call it what it is. This is not a bypoll. It is a receipt. Proof of purchase. The campaign has produced a blizzard of noise about everything except the central transaction. The ruling TVK will march to the Election Commission with a complaint about words: alleged derogatory remarks by DMK leaders against a woman candidate. But the AIADMK's petition alleging cash distribution in Rettipalayam and Acharapakkam sits unanswered. The NTK candidate's allegation, tiffin boxes carrying Rs 6,000 and a silver coin, sits unanswered. The war of words gets a formal complaint; the war of wallets gets silence. Meanwhile the spectacle rolls on. Forty-kilometre roadshows. Tractor photo opportunities. A Chief Minister who asks to be regarded as your son and brother while the machine he leads treats your mandate as an asset to be acquired. Dhinakaran, for all his theatre, named the thing plainly: the Chief Minister is responsible for this by-election. He is right about the fact, even if his own house has no shortage of sins. Periyar taught that self-respect is the first property of a free people. What is more disrespectful to the voter than a system in which her vote is purchased twice, once at the ballot box in April and once in the back room in September, and she is then asked to ratify the purchase in October? Anna called the ballot the weapon of the powerless. A weapon that can be bought is not a weapon at all. It is merchandise. The INDIA bloc will demonstrate on October 13 and 14 demanding the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner, and its MPs will march to the Commission's headquarters on October 6, polling day itself. The referee deserves every question he is getting. But the rot on display in Dharapuram and Madurantakam is older and deeper than any one official. It is the normalization of the mandate market, the quiet consensus across parties that voters are an audience and seats are inventory. On October 6, the voters of two constituencies will queue up as they always do. The question on the ballot is not which candidate wins. It is whether their vote is a weapon or a price tag. That is the only thing worth voting on.