In an unwitting betrayal of their mindset, aspirants for votes of the land’s ever gullible masses are openly talking of capturing power and adorning authoritative posts in the government. Next comes the lobbying for plum portfolios promising avenues for syphoning off public funds in the name of taking up projects under broad banner of development. Splurging money begins with holding ostentatious functions, first to launch the programmes and then to lay the glitzy foundation stones, only for the sake of photo shoot and wide publicity with the media readily obliging, as always, to project the images of chief guests, guests of honour and the coterie of sundries with dreams of making it big in the party first and government soon afterwards.

Physicists have coined the term horsepower, setting different standards and types. For lay people’s sake, they have explained it as the power that a horse possesses for pulling and the connect between the animal and physicists ends there. The term, when applied to the functionaries in the government, in all its three wings namely, Legislature, Executive and Judiciary, has been bestowed by the knowledgeable in management and administration a great deal of attention, making it fascinating to read about.

The nation’s Constitution lays down the rules of the power game as it were, which the functionaries are obliged to adhere and practise while holding their respective offices with a well-defined framework of authority. If all of these functionaries, particularly the elected representatives of people with their restricted term of holding office, adhered and practiced the rules of the power game, all would be well with the nation. Given the present scenario of the people’s elected representatives overriding the executive, read bureaucrats, and to some extent over-reaching the jurisdiction of the land’s judiciary, the power game has only one winner and everyone knows, or should know, who that winner is. That game goes by the name politics, bestowing unbridled power to the players, with the masses content to remain mute witnesses and hapless victims.

Analysts of public affairs should tell us about the elected representatives crossing the Lakshman Rekha drawn in the country’s Constitution. Do the familiar-to-all features such as a) Z-class security at exorbitant costs, b) Take-home wages (!) in astronomical proportions, c) VVIP status with associated privileges and so on have Constitutional sanction? It is simply a season of merriment for the players in the power-driven playtime.