Lucky Winner

Indian democracy as usual stands gigantic in this world.  People are always hopeful and want to work towards change that can change their lives.  Election – 2014 is unique as the two contending parties had declared their leader, future Prime Minister if the party comes to power.  The oldest party which ruled the country for almost 60 years had young reluctant leader with little experience in governance.  The other party had the ambitious leader with a track record of development and good governance.  Both the parties have their set of mismanagement of a critical situation resulting in bloodbath targeting a particular community.  The issues have become old to the younger generation which is looking forward to move ahead for progress.

Congress party has faced its first ever worst debacle.  The party burdened by corruption and inefficiency wanted to project its candidate as Young Mr. Clean.  Castigating the other party for its ‘Hindutva’ leanings did not benefit them.  All the criticisms against the other Prime Ministerial candidate have boomeranged.  Mr. Narendra Modi had tactfully dealt with it making him more imposing.  In addition his development of Gujarat story has swayed the youth in his favour.  Arvind Kejriwal who had given some hope to the people a few months ago lost faith for failure to govern Delhi.  The colossal blunder he made by resigning as Chief Minister of Delhi will haunt him for many more years. 

In fact, in these elections people had little choice.  They had to elect either a man with ambition and enthusiasm to make India a developed ‘Hindustan’ or a novice who appears always busy in revival of party and bask in the glory of family ‘martyrdom’ and without any vision for progressive India.   Now Mr. Rahul has at least a decade to develop his ancestral party from grass roots and become a seasoned politician with vision.

 Congress leaders in Telangana are unable to understand reasons for their debacle in the state.  They thought that once Telangana is given they will win all seats in Telangana.  Few leaders, who took part in Telangana agitation and part of JAC for sometime, had later followed their high command’s command and withdrew from JAC.  None of the ministers ever bothered to protect the agitating students from illegal arrests. Instead they got students, who had done ‘dharna’ or ‘gheraod’ them demanding their resignation to their posts in support of Telangana, arrested. The Congress leaders or Ministers never protested Kiran Kumar Reddy’s vile statements in Assembly or Press conferences after CWC announced positively on formation of Telangana.  When youth committed suicide aspiring for Telangana none of the Congress leaders showed any concern, neither the leaders in the Centre addressed the Telangana student community or youth to not to commit suicide as the process of Telangana is on the track will be finished in due course and Telangana for sure will be reality in the future.  The unsympathetic, arrogant, dictatorial acts by the local leaders and comments trivializing Telangana issues by some Central leaders and stoic silence by the Prime Minister and Sonia G had hurt Telanganites and that is expressed by vote. 

Few leaders who won could be due to the good they have done to their segments in the past.  The few seats gained by TDP are because of the ‘settlers’.

In the democracy people do not vote just by listening to what the contestants or leaders say at the time of elections.  They evaluate them from the day they won.  Their activity/programmes/governance that has effect on their life in the past few years is not forgotten.  This is like internal assessment.  And when they contest again considering all these the party or person is given the ranking.

 The lucky winner in these elections is the ‘power star’.  Few weeks before elections he established a party.  His party's second meeting in Vizag was not a success.  He never contested nor anybody from his party.  But his party has become part of NDA.  His campaign resulted loss of votes to BJP in Telangana.  The TDP-BJP combine win in Seemaandhra had made him a star campaigner close to Shri Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister elect of India.

Election Campaign - 2014

Tomorrow – 12^th May will be the last day of polling.  Yesterday the campaign has ended.  This Election – 2014 is conducted in nine phases, extending for more than a month, is the longest in history of Indian Elections.  The largest democracy in the world this time had more than 80 crores voters.  This is the costly election as per the expenditure by the election commission and also by the candidates splurging huge amounts in their campaign.

The election campaign this time had been the worst ever campaign focused mostly on self aggrandizement and mudslinging on the opposite party and contestant.  None of the senior party leaders or Prime Ministerial candidates ever talked about how they will tackle to free the nation from corruption and put it on the track of development.  Poverty alleviation and employment creation had not been an issue.  The talk of development is about one state and that state has deplorable human welfare indices.  In a country like India with diverse geography and culture no one model will be applicable to all states. 

During the election campaign every contestant and party spoke about the wrong doings of the other parties and contestants.  This exposed all the contestants and parties’ character and principles.  The worst trend that has appeared in the present election is challenging the Election Commission after flouting election code.  If this is the trend setter it is worrisome for future elections and democracy. 

In the past many elections there was some choice to select the party or candidate.  In the present it is difficult to understand who belongs to which party and to choose between a business tycoon, power maniac politicians and persons with criminal backgrounds.  There is little choice.  But Indian democracy is vibrant and the collective decision of half a billion people will surprise the world.