What Is Up With The Lotuses? Get Your Own Fucking Lotuses! You People Have Gone Lotus Fucking Crazy! Lotus! Lotus! Lotus! Lotus!

"Three days after being elected Gaya MP, Hari Manjhi finds himself in the middle of a controversy that may soon snowball into a criminal case against him.

A photograph in a vernacular daily today shows Hari Manjhi injecting medicine to a patient as a part of a 'thanksgiving' exercise in his Bodh Gaya village.

Manjhi, a self-proclaimed school dropout, is also a 'doctor' and learnt the 'trade' from a 'master', a quack who has been in the trade for the past 15 years.

Quacks, most of them illiterate, are revered in rural India and in the local language are called jhola chhap dactars.

Quackery, according to senior lawyer Ashok Kumar, is a non-bailable criminal offence punishable under Section 420 of the IPC and the offence carries seven years of rigorous imprisonment.

However the Gaya district magistrate, Sanjay Kumar, is reluctant to take action against the MP on the basis of a newspaper photograph. But, he conceded that if the charge of practising quackery is proven, it would be a serious charge against the politician.

Sanjay Kumar added that an inquiry has been ordered and a follow up would be taken on the basis of the inquiry report.

On his part, Hari Manjhi clarified today that he has been treating poor patients for chhoti moti bimaris (simple ailments) with sui aur goli (injections and tablets) for the past 15 years. Then he proudly went on to add that he was a 'non Matric'.

Further probed, Manjhi admitted that that he had dropped out of school — in fact the politician 'does not remember till which class he studied'. 'Khali garib log hamare pas ata hai (only the poor come to me),' said Manjhi, as an explanation.

On being quizzed, district BJP chief Lalita Singh admitted that she knew Manjhi practised homeopathy. When reminded that non-Matriculates cannot study homeopathy, she said that she did not have 'an idea' of the MP’s personal details.

The person who seemed sympathetic was writer Ahmed Qadri who believes that Hari Manjhi may not be aware of the crime he was committing by that practising medicine without proper authority of Medical Council of India. However, ignorance of law is no excuse, believes legal experts.

The issue has brought embarrassment to the state BJP that adopted Hari as the 'lotus bearer' in the Gaya parliamentary constituency."

-- An Unknown Correspondent - probably also too embarrassed to show himself - even from The Telegraph of India.