Desperate for attention

Ex-Delhi legislator Vijay Jolly claimed he "led" a poll observers' delegation in Cambodia on Tuesday

Trust politicians to exaggerate their role and contribution to an event, especially those who find themselves out of the reckoning. One such is Vijay Jolly of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Until 2014, Jolly headed the BJP’s overseas arm, the Overseas Friends of BJP. He was replaced when Amit Shah became the chief of the party. But Jolly, a former Delhi legislator, isn’t somebody to fade away quietly. Recently, he was in Cambodia as a poll observer. On Tuesday, he sent a press statement that claimed that he “led” the nine-nation poll observers’ delegation, which included a former president of Colombia and a former speaker of Indonesia. Sticking to its spirit of hyperbole, the press statement said Cambodia used indelible ink that India supplied. “The indelible poll ink supplied by India was marked on the fingers of all voters in Cambodia. This strengthened India-Cambodia friendship and understanding,” it said. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen met the poll observers after he was re-elected and remembered the statesmanship of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, and that India was one of the first countries to recognise Cambodia in 1981.