Purifying flame

In Lucknow, India, Rajan Yadav is standing for Assembly elections on a  manifesto of rooting out corruption.

He wants to consign corruption to the funeral pyre, he says, and he is underlining this by conducting his campaign from a cremation ground. To make the symbolism complete, he has nicknamed himself Arthi Baba, the name given to the bamboo stretcher used to carry a corpse to the  pyre.

He says:

“I am a misfit in the present system as I am a honest person. In today’s world, an honest person cannot survive …  Corruption, adulteration, dishonesty, bribe are common these days…if you want to cleanse the system, they must be killed….democracy cannot survive in such a situation… I tell the people that ultimately they have to come to the cremation ground….so vote for me for salvation and cleanse the system…that is why I have opened my election office at Rajghat on the banks of the Rapti river, where bodies are burnt.” 

Full story here.