Poll-wracked states usually have little to smile till the day of the results. But in Gujarat this time, a bit of comic relief has filtered in through the cyber space, where the poll slugfest has moved in of late. Rich with discrepancies and inadvertent mistakes, political parties’ Web sites have become the new venues of unlikely humour. The most common goof-ups have crept into the resumes of candidates which have been put up on the sites. So if BJP has its way in Babra, people will send Bava Movaliya—director of “Amreli Jilla Dukh Utpadak Sangh”—to the Assembly. At least, this is what Movaliya’s resume says on the party Web site. Or is it a comment on the state of the Doodh (milk) Utpadak Sangh that Movaliya is director of?

Other resumes have two different versions—in Gujarati and English—of the candidates’ educational qualifications. For instance, the resume of Kersan Odedara, BJP candidate from Kutiyana, gives his academic qualification in the English version as “SSC passed”. However, the Gujarati version makes him a “non metric”.

Even the names in the candidates’ lists are not spared. The victim of one such faux pas is Mangubhai Patel, Minister for Forests and Environment and candidate from Navsari, who has been listed as “Manguben Patel”.

There are, of course, gems like “religious and historic book reding and new serching”, which has been shown as the interests of Chatrasingh Mori, the candidate from Jambusar, or the one on Pravin Rathod from Bardoli, which says: “2007 08: is being chosen as the member the legislative assembly from amongst the 166 Bardoli constituency”, charting out his political career.

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