COME winter and the city of Nagpur is assailed by a five-star political culture. For, stepping in winter’s footsteps arrives the Maharashtra Government for the winter session of its legislature -- Ministers, Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), Members of the Legislative Council (MLCs), bureaucracy, support staff, hundreds of official vehicles, thousands of policemen and their officers from different parts of the city, and thousands of political workers of every political leader. What marks this massive influx of political and bureaucratic people is the five-star culture. Everything is plush with money -- which certainly flummoxes common people, all right. This culture is markedly different from what it used to be say 25-30 years ago. In those good-old days, most legislators -- MLAs and MLCs -- lived in Aamdar Niwas (MLAs Hostel) in Civil Lines. Now, only a few legislators are found in the hostel that is big enough to accommodate the full strength of both the Houses of legislature.

 

Today, however, most legislators are known to be staying in different five-star hotels or similar accommodations for the entire period of the winter session. The official hostel is used by political workers -- and only a handful of legislators belonging to different parties. So, for record, the hostel rooms are occupied, but the inmates are the ones for whom the place is not intended. The ones who stay there are political workers of different levels. Old-timers in Nagpur or in journalism recall the simplicity of the legislature sessions in those long decades back. Only a handful of MLAs would bring their own cars -- while the rest used most trains to arrive or to go back or to approach their constituencies at week-ends during the session period. Nagpur was abuzz for days when an MLA from Western Maharashtra’s rich sugar belt came to Nagpur in his white-coloured Mercedes.

 

That was in the early 1970s. Today, nobody bothers about such minor details -- since most legislators come in their own swanky cars and live in five-star hotels and spend money whose counting is never supposed to be done. By a rough estimate -- of course unofficial -- the city of Nagpur hosts at least 5,000 cars coming from outside during the winter session, apart from official vehicles. The same estimates suggests that the city hosts about 50,000 outsiders during the session. Let alone the subject of how much meaningful business is transacted during the session, the question that everybody asks is: Does all this massive scale serve any purpose other than political? Does this benefit the common man - in Nagpur or in Vidarbha (for which the session was to be held in the Second Capital)? Very frankly, the loosefooter does not have an appropriate answer to such questions. All he can say is that the five-star political culture that descends on Nagpur during the legislature’s winter session leaves an utterly bad taste in his mouth. All he can say is, he is baffled beyond words ! n