Distinction, Debut, Discourse, Disaster, Discpline

In our democracy, some unique Distinctions:

1. Unlike the western democracies, the less privileged sections of Indian society are enamoured with the electoral process and their voting percentages are substantially higher.

2. The smaller parties have more political and ideological maneuverability when compared to the larger national parties

3. The population of the voting constituents tends to increase when we go from national to state to municipal /panchayat elections. Exactly the opposite happens in the western democracies where local governance suffers from apathy.

-- The post liberalization generation comes of age -- Debut

This is the first election where those who were born in the year 1991 will have the vote. They have lived their entire life in a ‘liberalised’ economy. They have grown up believing that in India all is well and everything is possible to achieve. So they will vote and we shall see what that throws up.

-- Hardly can you call this an election for the parliament -- Discourse

This election aims to elect a parliament but the role of parliament itself has never been more diminished than in the recent past. Abysmal number of days in session, virtual absence of debate and passage of almost all major bills after noisy and chaotic scenes instead of any discussion , Sting /Scam money being shown on live TV inside the Lok Sabha and parliamentarians being accused of and implicated in taking money for raising questions as well as for body trafficking . Phew.

-- It has been sanctified as a Presidential contest by parties which have virtually no internal democracy --Disaster

As if to drive the last nail, instead of alleviating the pain, this election has become LK Advani vs. Manmohan Singh (proxy Rahul Gandhi). Who has time for party in parliament reviews in the era of multi party kaleidoscopic coalitions? When there is virtually no internal democracy in the political party structure, how do you expect a higher calling for democratic values into the houses of parliament?

--When the code is bigger than the conduct –- Discipline

Article 324 of the constitution vests many powers with the Election Commission and makes it the responsibility of the Election Commission to be pro-active in superintending, directing & controlling the elections with the powers vested in it. But the implementation and enforcement of the code and the spirit of it are slightly different matters!!

Hate speeches, communalization of rhetoric, personal attacks, calls for violent action etc are great for churning news but the spirit of the elections are not impacted by a few instances. The bigger challenges, unaddressed as they are, include election finance, role of state sponsorship in the political process etc. Meanwhile, a film star turned parvenu politician has said things about a state CM and the show goes on…….

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