Campaign beat - Part 1

I suspect I'll be in a foul mood from Saturday. So let me write trivia when I'm still interested.

• Campaigning is hard physical labor. No wonder political workers get about 200 bucks per day besides food.
• Assuming I spoke to about 500 people each day, in 12 days its 6000. On the whole, we spoke to about a hundred thousand voters.
• Campaigned in five languages! Kannada, English, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu, in that order. In Telugu, I only managed "vote veyandi".
• We start conversing in a language based on the TV channel people are watching. Some funny "anti-demon" symbol hung outside houses also gives away the lingustic profile of the voter.
• Why do people advertise their religion on their front doors? In our home, there is no 'God' outside the Pooja room.
• Muslims are much more politically aware than the average voter. And they were very nice to us despite the Saffron baggage we carried.
• While we 'volunteers' had easy access to leaders, the local party workers aren't that lucky. Hierarchy matters in politics.
• I wish Vijayakumar, our local in-charge in Chitradurga, gets third time lucky. He has unsuccesfully contested Municipal elections twice (spent > 100 rupees per voter!).
• Didn't visit the Chitradurga fort even though we were campaigning all around it.
• Apparently BJP spent about 100 crores on the Bellary seat. Neighbouring Chitradurga's budget was 40-50 crores.
• Visited the seer of the Basava (Lingayat) Mutt at their sprawling campus in Chitradurga. The first thing he asked, "howz the situation?".
• The money I donated to the party election fund was used to buy Advani masks. A campaigning method that I can scarcely approve.
• Met a girl and apparently her mom-in-law in Domlur, outside their unbelievably huge house. They had atleast half-a-dozen cars and said they'll never vote for the BJP :)
• A local leader in Domlur was to arrange our lunch in a restaurant. We hardly required 6000 rupees. He gave a large bundle of cash, coolly said "call me if you need more" and left. I wonder what happens to the rest of the money.

Continued here.