What I Learnt From Binge-watching the Karnataka Elections on Twitter

I woke up today an hour late to work, and to the fact that BS Yeddyurappa of the Bharatiya Janata Party was sworn-in as Karnataka chief minister. He doesn’t have a cabinet, yet he’s already waiving a loan for farmers. The Congress is protesting somewhere. Rahul Gandhi is in Chattisgarh.

Elections everywhere have become a source of non-stop, unscripted entertainment, and Indians love to binge-watch. It all came together last night in an incredible display of politics, opinion, reportage and maybe(?) democracy on Twitter, and I wasn't going to miss it.

After alliance-forming negotiations as nail-biting as an episode of MTV Roadies, the Supreme Court opened its gates at midnight to the Congress Party’s petition to stall Yeddyurappa’s elevation to CM. Great start to the season.

First, though, a little background. This episode of Weakest Link: Let’s Form a Government began earlier in the day, with the fractured mandate of the Karnataka Assembly election results, where the BJP came out with a majority of 104 out of a 222 seats, setting up a day, perhaps a week, perhaps even a lifetime of Amit-Shah-Will-Call-You memes.

Enter Karnataka Governor and the latest entrant to the RSS graduates Hall of Fame, Vajubhai Vala.

Vala invited Yeddyurappa to form the government, despite the Congress and JD(S) giving him signatures of 118 MLAs—a comfortable majority. I wondered why our friend would do this, then realised, along with the rest of the country, that he’s always been the man at the right place and right time—having once vacated his seat in Gujarat for Modi. Modi kindly returned the seat to him in the next election.

A pracharak always pays his debts.

Vajubhai ban gaya sentiment man, and gave Yeddy 15 days to prove a majority, despite Yeddy only asking for seven.

This news was confirmed on Twitter by BJP Karnataka, not the governor’s office. Perhaps a non-partisan official tasked with telling the world texted someone else as he was on his way? The Karnataka BJP deleted the tweet, waited for the governor’s office to confirm, and tweeted again with a changed time.

Nothing to see here, just some jacked-up-on-gomutra members of the famed IT Cell pissing on the sanctity of a constitutionally non-partisan office.

More reveals. We learnt that people elected to make grown-up decisions and fix real problems like farming are more wishy-washy than 16-year-old boys crushing on every girl in school. Five Congress-JD(S) MLAs went missing, but the ashes of their disappearance birthed a legend, independant MLA R Shankar. He defected to the BJP yesterday, rejoined Congress by noon, and was with the BJP by nightfall. Last we checked he was back with the Congress

Entertainment can be educational too, and I learnt that this is a prime example of Horse Trading, a phrase deeply entrenched in the Indian political lexicon:

Cut to last night’s big cliffhanger. The Supreme Court plea was put forward by alleged sex-tape artist Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who walked in not knowing what day it was.

He was upstaged by one Supreme Court judge, who didn't even know which party chief minister hopeful HD Kumaraswamy belongs to, the Janata Dal (Secular) or its ally, the Congress. (It's the former.)

Tanmay Bhatt appeared, staying truly in character with an attempt to provide comedic relief by heckling the poor honourable saps who were bringing us news from the courtroom.

I made popcorn to go with my nutella.

Former attorney general Mukul Rohatgi—representing the BJP MLAs—turned up the drama, getting super pissed at the Supreme Court for dragging him out of bed in the middle of the night, when no life hung in the balance. For a brief moment, I wondered if I should be asleep too, but couldn’t tear myself away.

And lastly, we finally realised what has been stopping India from achieving a truly top-notch justice system: better photocopy machines.

I tried to change the channel, but there wasn’t much else going on. Shehla Rashid gave us an update on her PhD, while some people were angry about a Ekta Kapoor's response to PewDiePie.

I couldn’t escape politics, but Uday Chopra— of Yash-Chopra’s-Son fame—finally gave me my moment of zen, finally machao’ing some Dhoom, after years of waiting.

I could finally sleep—not happy—but at least free. Until the next installment.

Follow Parthshri Arora on Twitter.