KOLLEGAL (CHAMRAJNAGAR): It’s peak poll season and a dozen sorcerers are busy drawing up lists of their wares: goats, pigeons, crows and hen that will be sacrificed over the next few days in Kollegal, 140km from IT hub Bengaluru.
Under the cover of darkness, the sleepy town’s magicians quietly go about ‘praying’ and casting spells from about 6 pm to midnight in the forests and on the banks of the
Cauvery to bring candidates success. And this despite the 2017
Karnataka Prevention and Eradication of Inhuman Evil Practices and Black Magic Bill.
The magic starts off as a prayer whispered into the ears of the nominees: be it any party. The sorcerers — who insist on being called ‘worshippers’ — receive requests for prayers in
Kannada, ‘maata mantra’, to curry favour with deities to strike alliances and devise votepulling strategies at about Rs 20,000 a prayer.
Come daylight, it’s back to canvassing and distancing themselves from any talk of black magic. No one is willing to talk about the Bill the
Congress government managed to pass last year. “Even if I’m approached, I don’t use these services. Congress can win polls on its own. I represented
BJP in Lok Sabha polls in 2009 and 2014 but moved to Congress because of non-adherence to such issues,” Congress nominee A R Krishnamurthy told TOI. BJP candidate G N Nanjundaswami refused even to talk about the Bill. “There is no such black magic in Karnataka. The question of countering or approving doesn’t arise,” he said.