Now that a lot more people in the intelligentsia and youth communities (isn’t it fascinating that the two are years apart?) know that they must vote – courtesy kyunki agar aap vote nahi kar rahe ho to aap so rahe ho (if you don’t vote, you are sleeping) and sundry other campaigns initiated by corporates and media alike – I don’t need to repeat the same spiel.
So, what have I got to say? I want to talk about the dilemma that most voters in India, especially the youth, face. Should it be the party or the particular candidate in their constituency that we should vote for? Even if our chosen candidate comes to power, his actions are likely to be dictated by the party he belongs to (and we may not like the party per se), so there’ll be little good he’ll be able to do on his own. And if we vote for a party, the person from our constituency may turn out to be a shlook (I don’t know if that’s a word, but you get the idea). In any case, there are more chances of a coalition government or a hung parliament, so all the policies of a party that look good on their manifesto may not materialize in reality.
Unfortunately, most of the people who have clean records, a cleaner conscience and are youthful and intelligent as well never ‘run’ for elections – they’d rather run away from it. So we end up wracking our brains about choosing the lesser of several evils.
I wish it were possible for the people of India to vote in a ballot asking them whom they want to elect for certain roles (prime ministership, key ministries, national security adviser, etc.)…
