Of Waves, Wrath and Blunders: Election 2014

Waves of Promise, Belief and Sentiments:

India:

To put this win into statistical perspective, since 1984 General Elections, Bharatiya Janata Party is the only party to win the majority number of Lok Sabha seats on its own i.e obtaining the “magic number” without taking any alliance into picture.

This election result is as satisfying and as comprehensive as it can get for a National Party in a country which is spread across varied languages, beliefs, cultures and sentiments. To sweep away so many with the sheer promise of a model state previously developed, speaks volumes about what we, as a nation, are expecting from today’s leaders: Development. It is also a lesson, for few self-proclaimed leaders (You-Know-Who), that actions do speak louder than any number of sound systems installed at election rallies.

It is the wave of promise that has now, officially, got our undivided attention, and it is up to this BJP led NDA to deliver and show its critics that past discrepancies of a bygone age belonged to a different older version of its party.

Andhra Pradesh:

Time to work together

To put the result here in simple terms, CBN is for Andhra, what NaMo is for India. But the win for TDP has not been as comprehensive as one would have hoped for, as YSRCP have notched up, disturbingly and surprisingly, high number of assembly seats. And yet, by the sanity of the larger section, gladly, TDP sails enough to get over the majority mark.

Andhra Pradesh is truly fortunate enough to find itself at the hands of one of the most pro-development and sensible leaders of our time, CBN, at this critical time. More than anything, the state needs a stable government and a capable leader to pull it through post-division blues and the Modi-Naidu factor is a blessing indeed.  

Telangana:

The first government in youngest state of the largest democracy would be formed by a party which is riding on the wave of sentiment of people, and it deserves so. It has given itself to the cause of the state from the time of its inception, and it would be interesting to see how much of an impact it can create, now that their cause, after a long struggle, has been finally met. TRS party now bears the expectations and demands of a young state on its shoulders, and we can only wish and hope that the State and Centre work in tandem, and walk the state through it first few steps.  All the very best, TRS!

Wrath of the Indians

Now, now, now, ‘defeat’ never tasted so sweet. To a party which has

We had it coming!

concentrated more on political moves and less on administration pre and post General Election 2009, this result is nothing but a slap on its face for showing indifference towards larger sections of people by not addressing bulk of the critical issues. It has inadvertently put the nation back at least by a good half a decade in terms of economical growth. From appointing a ‘robotic’ Prime Minister to handling sensitive issues, it has done everything wrong in the last five years, and it deserved a complete route out from the country. And any hopes of forming a government in the new state of Telangana too were completely shattered by the men in Pink. It would be interesting to watch them uncomfortably hop around in the opponent’s seat for the next five (well even ten if NDA does well) years.

Blunders

Even a 10-year-old following IPL caught onto the “Ab ki baar Modi sarkar” line,

Fall from grace

except of course Arvind Kejriwal, not that he had to catch onto it, but a wise acknowledgment of its presence, would certainly have done a world of good for Kejriwal, for he defied sense and logic and took on NaMo in Varnasi, ignorantly hoping to repeat his battle glory against Sheila Dikshit. Rather than concentrating on a few MP seats, AAP has flapped its wings far and wide, without scrutinizing the merits of his party members contesting in over 400 seats, and the result must certainly have ruffled him. It has somewhere, in the last six months, lost its basic ideology of a common man contesting and has paved way for its own embarrassing defeat. Even with the consideration of ‘first-time’ tag associated to it, AAP would most probably have done a touch better had there been a better leader with strategy at its helm. From the highs of January to the lows of May, AK might find this to be a bitter pill to swallow. The best that AAP supporters and members can hope for is that, this general election has served as enough of a lesson for its party chief to plan and prioritize his future course of actions better.

All in all, for a common man sitting in Hyderabad, this election result is nothing out of the blue, and has fallen in line with the ‘obvious’. All that is left is congratulating the parties that have won, and wishing the best for them and their supporters, voters and members.

Now, it’s over to the Assembly and Parliament, where our real expectations and hopes ought to take a shape. For a better India! #JaiHindi

The None Of the Above anomaly

For now, not this one

In October last year, when the Election Commission first introduced the concept of ‘None of the above’ option for the general elections, I was so excited that, for a moment, I considered  endorsing a plain white flag in support of that option and start an election campaign of my own in constituencies stricken with “bad” candidates/options. Democracy never ceases to spread out and flex its muscles parading its presence from time to time, does it?

But the initial excitement was slowly replaced with rational, pragmatic outlook on the NOTA because as democracy does, and always will, it did not provide us with a satisfying complete meal here, but rather a humdrum Yeah-I-am-here-folks plate meal initially, which has to be subjected to thoughtful revisions before it can be considered to be thoroughly consumed by those seeking it.

The problem with None of the Above option too is simple, it is rendered pointless because of its clear gaping flaw: None of the above option cannot enforce a re-election in the case of it obtaining the majority of votes, i.e, the one who has obtained second highest majority, second to NOTA option, is the winner.

An argument can be made that NOTA option was never meant to be what-we-all-so-obviously-want-it to be but was only a means to culminate stats who were dissatisfied with those contesting.

But imagine this, how many of us (those like me), who, even though are dissatisfied, end up choosing from the lot rather than going for NOTA just to make sure that the vote does not go down the drain? So NOTA option does not even reflect that stat properly. In a way, NOTA’s presence this year round could do nothing but dilute the number of votes for particular candidates, and therein creating another problem for those few better-of-the-lot candidates contesting in elections. Hence, it serves practically no purpose for the 2014 General Elections just because it was introduced haphazardly without thoroughly examining the chinks in its armor.

But NOTA, if properly reviewed and implemented accordingly, in the coming years, can be the most powerful democratic tool handed to the common man in general elections, because it would then have the power to reject unworthy candidates, demanding and forcing political parties to field better leaders.

Till then, it is necessary that we ignore this option completely so as not to let our once-in-five-years democratic exercise to be a number in a pile of counter-productive statistical data. And as always, the best that can be done is to go through the list of candidates closely, scrutinize pros and cons of their promises and hope the best candidate represents you in the assembly and parliament.

Sin Vote Bank

I have read in The Hindu that out of 813.4 million registered voters, there are about 100 million new voters. 
Now this stat unnecessarily triggered few emotions.

Going back one year down the memory line, I look at an ultra optimistic myself (I still am, but just an optimist), where I believed and did not believe in few things. For example, I believed that there was a huge cast based vote bank existing in India and I Did Not believe that caste based vote bank existed among the urban voters, or to be more specific, I did not, for a second, believe that caste based vote bank existed in the urban youth. 

Well, coming back to the present day, The Naive Thinking Me's world has been thoroughly (and rightfully) rocked. Last few months of my personal experiences and observations have been a testimony to that. 

Caste. Caste? The name? The family line that we have been born into? Our ancestors? How trivial is that? If we closely (or to be frank just simply) reflect on the nature of these parameters that inadvertently influence things ranging from being a part of a fandom to taking sides during arguments to voting for any particular party, we would realize the pathetic hypocrisy we are all (Forgive me, I know that many of you give rat's ass about caste or cast-ism, but I am generalizing for the sake of convenience), at least many, are still a part of. 

To consider someone, or ourselves, to be a part of some superior higher class of human race, is an age old ignorance that has to be done away with. Just the idea that belonging to a particular caste is a source of pride, if anything, shows that we have not built on success stories for ourselves that we, as an individual, can be proud of. If only we can outsource half of the energy that is spent there on enhancing the individual skill set. If Only. 

What I am asking does not take much of our time or energy, its the simplest of things like talking to our friends on such issues, doing our bit in eradicating that thought from someone's head that can make a difference, at least somewhere in the 100 million new voters. 

Instead of just backing a politician that we have always respected (reasonably or unreasonably), we could look at the facts, virtues, positives, negatives aspects of all the politicians in the race and most importantly live in the present. It is so much better to soak in the existing sunlight and take battle sides fairly, rather than sulking in the shadows of former glory. 

The only blood that we actually share is that of our parents and direct siblings, and not with some leader, nor revolutionist, nor your close friend, who shares your last name. People are what they are and not what their names are. 

I somehow believe, with the existing trends that we are slipping away into (an not drawing away from) undeniable debauchery. Ten years from now, twenty years from now, when the fights move away from the presence of boundary lines on a map, we cannot blame some random politician for dropping a caste filled incendiary on us because we have let this live on. 

We today are letting the stub to swagger with us that could any day be lit up. Let us just give the existence of this disease a thought now before it consumes us up for good in times to come.

Let us all vote for someone who he/she actually is. 

Thank you
#LargestDemocracy #IndiaVotes #TheHindu #CasteBasedPolitics

Whose foot is it and in whose mouth?

I have grown up, and growing up, surrounded by a lot of talk about how frightening or aloof the political stage is and also how the whole stage desperately needs a complete revamp, which always seemed as likely as a snowfall in Chennai. But of late, the chain of events on that stage has been pleasantly surprising.

The rise of the party which portrayed itself as a “Common-Man Party” assuaged our common belief in the need of alternate politics. But the question that plagues my mind is that, has it risen high enough for it to really provide that alternate politics? Are those 28 seats going to be enough?

Well, Yes and No. 

Yes, because, they have given themselves a shot at forming government.

No, because, that has served as the call out notice for ALL INDIA CYNICS (AIC) association to come out in full force.

And this association is exactly what bothers me today. That association is an unregistered, ever growing, highly contagious entity that always looks out for the plate of change but is highly cynical of anything that is served at them.

And let me elaborate. They today, are questioning two things.
1.     Is AAP really that ray of hope that actually sets about a change in the administration?
2.    If kejriwal, at the start of his political career, cannot stand on his word, how liable is it to trust him? Is it not greed that took him from “We will not shake hands with congress” to “Forming government with congress”?

The answer to the first one is really simple: Time. Time is bound to give answer for that.

And it is the refusal to accept any obvious answer to that second question that has me labeling that group as AIC. The gap between Kejriwal’s first statement to the second statement is not just a full stop on Microsoft word. It has got a space in between which needs to be filled with details. He might have been forced to curb his ego and move ahead with his foot in his mouth.

Before we question Kejriwal’s change of stand, we should look at the alternatives that AAP had. Here are the different scenarios/options which were staring at for AAP, as far as I was concerned.  

Scenario 1:

AAP does not take support of either BJP or Congress. It therefore has eye on the elections which will take place only after 6 months. That is around the Lok Sabha elections. Now four cases are possible:

Case1: After 6 months, BJP walks away with the majority, because the nation will most likely be in a MODIFIED mood by then. AAP knows this. Tables could turn anyway. BJP has already got 32 seats now, it could win those seats again and a few more congress seats and easily get the majority by then. This is the most likely case, and the most dangerous one for AAP. 

Case2: After 6 months, AAP gets the majority which means, it has to win few of BJP seats or congress seats, which wouldn’t be a good bet on any given day. This is not likely to happen owing to the strong blind support that Congress and BJP usually has got in its ‘territories’. 

Case3: After 6 months, Congress gets the majority. This is the LOL case and near impossible one. Better to rule this one out. 

Case4: Another hung elections with no one getting the majority. This has got as much chance as case 1.  

So in this whole scenario, Case 1 and case 4 seem to be the most likely ones, making this scenario a very risky bet for AAP. 

Scenario 2: 

To avoid scenario 1, the first option is to form government. 
Now who do they form with?

Case1: With BJP. But then, it would be a suicide mission, because, BJP has 32 seats, 4 seats more than AAP, it would be like AAP extending support to BJP. And AAP’s hands would be tied away further in this case. 

Case2: With congress. It would mean, accepting support from the very party that they were against all along, but that would be a premeditated stand in which they opposed a party for just who they were. AAP could look at a more rational approach here, because they have the advantage of numbers here as the congress has only 8 miserable seats. If there comes a tomorrow after forming government, when AAP introduces a people friendly bill, and congress MLA’s reject it, they have the opportunity to expose the congress for all. And if congress does support, well, it would then be termed as ‘congress in AAP’s hand’. But if congress does pull out its support, and government crumbles, AAP would be victorious and can contest the elections with that much more confidence of a victory.

Scenario 3:

Sit in the opposition, which AAP was certainly ready to do but that would have meant congress and BJP forming the government, which could not have happened. So that took them back to scenario 1. 

All these scenarios, if not anything, should teach us one thing, and that is that a leader is not he who is stubborn, or he who doesn't curb his ego and moves ahead blindly because of a word given at different point of time.

A leader is he who takes decisions in line to the existing situation, taking into account all the pros and cons and in that process, who has let himself be projected as a fool/traitor/cheater/what-ever-you-call. He has shown that his word is not bigger than his parties. If he has chosen to set aside his own promises, his personal interests and taken a stand for the public, the common man, he deserves, if not anything, at least time to prove his worth.  

At the end of that time, it might be Kejriwal, me or the association of cynics who are going to end up with a foot in mouth.

Hence, I am reminded of a famous line from one of Will smith’s mediocre movies, “Fear is not real. It is a fragment of our imagination. But Danger, Danger is real”

And it so fits here.  

Danger is another election. And that is real. 

Fear here is the association of Congress and AAP. And that is a fragment of our imagination.