Campaign boosts Gandhiji's place in <I>Time</I> magazine poll

Campaign boosts Gandhiji's place in Time magazine poll
SWATI MAJUMDER

VADODARA, DECEMBER 30: If Mahatma Gandhi lost out to Albert Einstein in Time magazine's Man of the Century poll, it was not for lack of effort on part of Vadodara -- and the Youth Congress, which campaigned for him.

The Youth Congress had taken upon itself the task of seeing that Mahatma Gandhi gets as many votes as possible in the Time magazine election to choose the Man of the Century.

The campaign began some 25 days ago, after members realised that although Gandhi figured in the poll, he was nowhere near winning. He was ninth. The front-runners were Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, an unlikely Adolph Hitler, and Martin Luther King Jr, who considered Gandhi his guru in the practice of civil disobedience and non-co-operation.

Today, 39,416 votes from Vadodara later, Gandhi is second in the poll. Not that the votes for Gandhi came from Indians alone. But in the end it was Einstein who won.

I saw no reason why Gandhiji shouldn't win,'' said Vadodara district collector Anil Mukim, who was one of the first to cast his vote for the Mahatma. With him were Vadodara Mayor Umakant Joshi, Police Commissioner J Mohapatra, and many other Government officials and office-bearers.

Nitin Contractor, an entrepreneur, hadcreated the website where people could cast their vote for Mahatma by e-mail. The address is: fed@wukbetibkube.com. Or, people were told, they could directly cast their vote at the Time magazine website, www.time.com.

Said Prataprao Jadhav, who voted for the Mahatma, ``I should at least do my part. Maybe one vote could make a difference, and that vote could be mine.''

Some, like Shivram Krishnan, voted even though they think there is no need to proclaim Gandhi's greatness to the world: ``Gandhiji's capabilities, his achievements do not have to be told to the world. For us he already is the Man of the Century.