Samar saw the opportunity of piercing his desperation. “This or nothing.”
Yogesh Patel went quiet. The room fell silent. And then, to Samar’s utter shock, Yogesh Patel began to push his chair back.
“Thank you for sitting for this meeting, Samar sahab…”
What?He was letting go of the chance to make government with them? But now if they went to HJS with the same demands, HJS would know that Yogesh Patel had not given in, and they would drive the negotiations even further. Samar stared down the well of their victory, seeing his upper hand slip.
“Yogesh Bhai,” Atharva addressed. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions yet.”
Samar glanced at him. Atharva wasn’t looking at him but straight at Yogesh Patel, his signal clear.Stay out of it.
“Your friend does not leave me any choice,” Yogesh Patel remarked, eyes coming to Samar. Samar felt Atharva’s eyes on him now and looked. Atharva nodded. Samar remained silent.
“Why don’t we go to the balcony for some fresh air?” Atharva offered. To Samar’s astonishment, Yogesh Patel immediately rose up, his tall, lean frame moving towards the glass trapdoor that opened into the balcony. Atharva followed, and closed the trapdoor to shut out all sounds. Samar turned to them, now that their voices were cut off. All he could see was both their backs.
What were they talking?
His brain began to tick.
Their conversation did not last long. It was a few minutes before Atharva was turning around. And then they were both stepping out of the balcony, closing the trapdoor.
“HDP gets to keep Deputy, Law & Order and Finance; we put Agriculture on the table to swap for Home.” Yogesh Patel announced, crossing his hands behind his back. Samar stood to his feet. Agriculture had been the first on his list to negotiate for Finance. But Home was going away here.
Samar eyed Atharva behind Yogesh Patel. He blinked his assent.
“We have a deal.” Samar nodded, holding his hand out. Yogesh Patel shook it.
“Congratulations to all of us,” the old man nodded at the room. “And good luck for a trailblazing five years in Himachal. Divine intervention has led us back to each other.” He eyed over his shoulder. Samar’s eyes whirled to Atharva, finding no acknowledgement there.
And the tick in his brain began to throb.
————————————————————
“Gauri.”
“Yes, sir?” She turned.
“Bring me the ticket distribution lists that we worked on when I was in London.”
“There were multiple lists from multiple stakeholders, sir. Which ones do you want?”
“Atharva’s.” Samar paused. “And… Vikram Rana’s.”
Fifteen minutes later, Gauri strode in with fresh printouts.
“Walk me through both lists. I remember we rejected most of Atharva’s proposed candidates and went with Vikram’s over everybody else’s, even Hariraj and Balwinder’s lists.”
“Correct.” Gauri set the papers down in front of him and spread them out — “Atharva sir’s lists mainly consisted of local senior faces that you initially gave your nod to but then we saw Vikram’s list and the feedback data from the survey firm. The match was remarkable.”
“Show me Vikram’s list.”
Gauri handed it to him. Samar read the names, remembering that he had vetted them sitting in Amaal’s parents’ hall while they all slept, thinking to himself that a lot of brand new members were nominated here. So many of these had joined HDP five, six, seven months ago from other parties but their backgrounds and ideologies had checked. So he had gone ahead with them.
“Find out, what were the vote shares of these candidates in the last election that they fought from other parties.”
Gauri pulled his laptop around and got to work. Samar read through Atharva’s list, laughing at himself. What a bullshit list. Now Samar could see through it. It was planted to make him see the stark difference between the original party members and the new, popular ones that had joined recently. Samar knew where this was going even before Gauri announced — “Most of these candidates held a 30-40% vote share in their last election. They either were the runners up or at least got one caste or gender wins.”
“Hariraj and Balwinder’s lists?”
