Elections are one psephological carnival in a democracy that politicians revel in celebrating. Like conventional fetishist rituals, elections too are times for a changing. The old order does not changeth yielding place to the new. Just, the old and the relatively old garbs are discarded. Come polls, and you find a host of them in new attires. If they are not in a trendy set of clothes, then they certainly talk different.

Such acts have now become intrinsic to the Indian electoral process. Politics do not make strange bedfellows - elections do. Aspirants for the Lok Sabha somehow manage to elevate the art of political infidelity to such a level that in the end the entire mechanism is reduced into one orgiastic catastrophe. It is a catastrophe for democracy- it is the people who are the losers.

An electoral victory is the last word in a country which prides itself in being the world's largest voting democracy. The bigger the victory, the bigger is the feather in the cap. So, in the morbid quest for a "seat" they know only one factor counts - the voter. Poll time is the beginning of one sordid ordeal. The voter is going to be wooed, beguiled into casting his/her ballot and then ditched till the next hustings.

The Northeast voters, like others elsewhere in India, have been jilted over and over again. In a region where political chicanery, hypocrisy and betrayal are watchwords for survival, politicians have to be adept at transcending ideological frontiers. It is easy for them to "rise to the occasion". After all, they do not have ideologies to adhere to. Self-preservation is all that they strive for.

Just have a look at the goings-on (in the Northeast) in the run-up to the Parliament elections. AF Golam Osmani is finally back in the Congress. He has suddenly perceived that this is a party which has been maintaining a secular character. Osmani has, however, conveniently not elaborated why he had not been with it all these days.

The contest for the Outer Manipur seat will be a piquant one. For the sitting Communist Party of India (CPI) MP Kim Gangte, the party is finally over. For the vanquished Meijunglung Kamson, the Congress is to blame for his defeat last year. So these party-hoppers have found a new glimmer of political hope in the Samata Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) respectively. Never mind their stand on the BJP combine till even a few months back.

It always suits small parties in small states to have a big friend at the centre. The perks are too many. Hence, the decision of the Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS) to go in for a divorce with the Congress. It does not matter it had fought a host many elections against the BJP too in the past. Promiscuity is the name of the game here. Why else would the Mizo National Front (MNF) and People's Conference (PC) be all pals with the BJP as well?

It was the same licentious libido for power that had compelled Gegong Apang's Arunachal Congress and Nipamacha Singh's Manipur State Congress to side with the BJP. These were people who had called the BJP the vilest of names till it occupied political centrestage after the 1998 elections. The candidates backed by the All-Bodo Students' Union (ABSU) and Bodo People's Action Committee (BPAC) will enter into a political wedlock with any party that makes promises to them. So nowadays they are sleeping with the BJP.

Samuel Johnson was not a wee bit off-the-track when he described politics being the last refuge of the scoundrel. It is. And elections are the last refuge of politicians in India. These people remain in politics only because, like it or not, voters allow them to do so. Yes, Samuel Coleridge is definitely right in the Indian (and Northeast too) context: in a democracy you have the politicians you deserve.