First of all, this post is not intended to hurt anyone's feelings. It was a real depressing time for me last april. Not because I had my final sem exams but mostly because of the elections in Tamil Nadu. It was the first time I got to vote for an assembly elections and the second time overall. I had voted for the earlier general elections. During the general elections, I had no Idea about the parties, their vision etc etc.. and believe me If I had known that, I'd wouldn't have taken the pain to drag myself to the polling booth. I was so excited about the voting procedure that I went to the polling station at 8am (yea..back in those days, I used to wake up at 6am!!) and cast to one loser party. This time around, I had closely followed the build up to the elections and had a pretty decent idea of the parties and their "promises". That was when I started seeing the full picture of the Indian Political system in a 16:9 format.
The thing that struck me odd was that no party had any real idealogy. I'll try to list all the parties that were in the fray. DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, PMK, DK, DMDK, BJP, Congress, Lok Paritran, DPI etc etc..(these are all the parties that I cud remember.). Almost all the parties were supposed to be based on the idealogy of the dravidian movement. But during the campaign speeches, no such thing as dravidian idealogy was even mentioned. All the big weights had basically formed alliances and there were thus two major parties. One led by the DMK and the other by the AIADMK. the election campaign focussed on which party gave more freebies to the people. One of them said they'll give 10kgs of rice at 2rs per kilo, a free colour tv, mangal sutra for to-be-married brides etc etc while the other sed they'll give a free computer to 12th std students etc etc. Unfortunately, it seems they havent heard this saying before "give a fish to a poor man and u'll feed him for a day. teach him how to fish and u'll feed him for the rest of his life". Instead of focussing on what improvements they'll make to the state, the rode on the freebie thingie and ultimately the party that gave the largest freebie stuff won the elections. So much for a democratic process. Also the two major parties had TV networks which they used as a campaign tool. It was, to say the least, worse than the polarised network Fox news (which is the worst TV network i've seen), as the slandered their opponents.
The thing that struck me odd was that no party had any real idealogy. I'll try to list all the parties that were in the fray. DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, PMK, DK, DMDK, BJP, Congress, Lok Paritran, DPI etc etc..(these are all the parties that I cud remember.). Almost all the parties were supposed to be based on the idealogy of the dravidian movement. But during the campaign speeches, no such thing as dravidian idealogy was even mentioned. All the big weights had basically formed alliances and there were thus two major parties. One led by the DMK and the other by the AIADMK. the election campaign focussed on which party gave more freebies to the people. One of them said they'll give 10kgs of rice at 2rs per kilo, a free colour tv, mangal sutra for to-be-married brides etc etc while the other sed they'll give a free computer to 12th std students etc etc. Unfortunately, it seems they havent heard this saying before "give a fish to a poor man and u'll feed him for a day. teach him how to fish and u'll feed him for the rest of his life". Instead of focussing on what improvements they'll make to the state, the rode on the freebie thingie and ultimately the party that gave the largest freebie stuff won the elections. So much for a democratic process. Also the two major parties had TV networks which they used as a campaign tool. It was, to say the least, worse than the polarised network Fox news (which is the worst TV network i've seen), as the slandered their opponents.
Election time is fun time for the people. Everyday, they hear about atleast a dozen politicians jumping from one party to another. And guess what, the two parties have totally opposed to each other interms of their roots. The people get to hear all kinds of nonsensical crap about why he jumped from one party to another. the worst thing is that its only during the election times, the celebrities jump into the political system. Probably, they feel any publicity is good publicity.
There was this unique party that went by the name LOK PARITRAN. Seems that this party was started by a group of IIT Alumni. Im not sure if the film rang de basanti came out after or before this elections, but these guys were def bitten by the rang de basanti message. They rode the elections on jus one promise. They said good governance (an let me assure u this. they had no clue on what the "good governance" meant). Oh..and also they made sure that the name "IIT" was associated with them. They wanted people to vote for them jus because they were from IIT and they promised good governance. I mean IIT is a big school and no doubt its a top technical university. But seeking votes on the IIT's brand image, thats pathetic. Their contention was that they were well qualified just because they were from IIT. But if you ask me, even Dr Manmohan Singh was educated in cambridge university. But what is doing now after becoming the prime minister?? As of today he's just a mouth piece for Sonia Gandhi who is the real prime minister. She meets up with all the Top business men, Top Diplomats etc etc and she is running the show. So I didnt see any reason why people should vote for these guys just because they were IIT material. But since this is India, they ended up getting a large percentage of votes. The bigger losers were the voters who voted for them. Probably, people felt that an unknown angel is better than a known devil. And guess what a few weeks after the elections, those "IITians" had a big "misunderstanding" and all hell broke loose in that party. So much for the Brand IIT.
I know there isnt any political system in world that is perfect. But i feel politics should not be nonsense. Think before you vote. if u cant find a good and a positive reason to vote for a party, Stay away from elections.(or, If that rule that allows u to register ur vote for no candidate comes up, press that button that says "no one"!!) U can always stay at home watch some tv or take your family for a group outing or something. Why waste your precious time on something that just isnt worth. As for me, I didnt vote. U'd say, it ur duty to vote. I didnt give a crap. I went to bombay and was watching all the action from there.
There was this unique party that went by the name LOK PARITRAN. Seems that this party was started by a group of IIT Alumni. Im not sure if the film rang de basanti came out after or before this elections, but these guys were def bitten by the rang de basanti message. They rode the elections on jus one promise. They said good governance (an let me assure u this. they had no clue on what the "good governance" meant). Oh..and also they made sure that the name "IIT" was associated with them. They wanted people to vote for them jus because they were from IIT and they promised good governance. I mean IIT is a big school and no doubt its a top technical university. But seeking votes on the IIT's brand image, thats pathetic. Their contention was that they were well qualified just because they were from IIT. But if you ask me, even Dr Manmohan Singh was educated in cambridge university. But what is doing now after becoming the prime minister?? As of today he's just a mouth piece for Sonia Gandhi who is the real prime minister. She meets up with all the Top business men, Top Diplomats etc etc and she is running the show. So I didnt see any reason why people should vote for these guys just because they were IIT material. But since this is India, they ended up getting a large percentage of votes. The bigger losers were the voters who voted for them. Probably, people felt that an unknown angel is better than a known devil. And guess what a few weeks after the elections, those "IITians" had a big "misunderstanding" and all hell broke loose in that party. So much for the Brand IIT.
I know there isnt any political system in world that is perfect. But i feel politics should not be nonsense. Think before you vote. if u cant find a good and a positive reason to vote for a party, Stay away from elections.(or, If that rule that allows u to register ur vote for no candidate comes up, press that button that says "no one"!!) U can always stay at home watch some tv or take your family for a group outing or something. Why waste your precious time on something that just isnt worth. As for me, I didnt vote. U'd say, it ur duty to vote. I didnt give a crap. I went to bombay and was watching all the action from there.
There might be a lots of factual errors. Excuse me for that.
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