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| In Shimla |
| Wednesday May 6, 2009 , Shimla |
| The Election Express reached the northern most point of it's journey today. We have driven through the tough, winding Western Ghats, sweated it out in mid-40's temperature of Orissa, and braved the bad roads of UP and Bihar but we had no solution for the unexpected cold weather in Shimla. I say unexpected but that's because Shimla has hit the headlines in recent years for being as warm as the plains. But perhaps to show the Election Express team what Shimla is really about, the cold winds, rains, hail and a little bit of sunshine all plotted to greet us. As sticky Rohtak had been our last stop, I had to even force myself to put a shawl in my bag in the morning we set out for Shimla from Chandigarh. 100 kms later, the locals balked at the sight of us in chappals. What could we do? We were too used to running around in dusty towns by now! By the way, we may have been ill-prepared for the weather but I wondered why politicians weren't using it to their advantage. If doing padyatras and pumping hands after listening to boring speeches was comfortable anywhere in the country, surely it had to be Shimla. But then there is nothing logical about Indian politics. The people of the 4 constituencies in Himachal Pradesh are perhaps too busy enjoying their naturally beautiful environ to bother about politics much. I don't blame them. |
Sunetra Choudhury started her career as a reporter with The Indian Express in 1999. When she left to join TV in 2002, she was heading the Delhi reporting team that would bring out Newsline. After a brief stint in hindi in Star News, she joined NDTV in 2003. Apart from doing investigative stories, Sunetra has been covering elections since UP by-elections in 2000. While she followed the Congress party in Delhi, she spent six weeks in Gujarat covering 2007 assembly polls, apart from UP and MP assembly polls.
