He nosed around, sounding out party officials about becoming a candidate for various seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. The knock-backs began to mount up. ‘As soon as they discovered I didn’t have much money to bring to the table, they suddenly weren’t interested, if you understand what I mean?’ he told me. He tried seat after seat, failing in each. ‘The people they consider to be viable candidates are people who they consider to have huge amounts of black money, OK?’ He went on: ‘You don’t hear people saying “This guy is a complete crook, we don’t want to be seen with
...more
