ChinmayC Blog

Five polling phases of the 9-phase General or Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) Elections-2014 have been completed. The sixth phase polling is being conducted on Thursday, the 24 th of April. In this phase Mumbai too goes to poll with its six Lok Sabha seats. In this last phase of polling in Maharashtra there are 13 other seats including in Thane, Raigad, Nashik and Jalna-Aurangabad. When Maharashtra and Mumbai go to poll the malady of voter apathy comes in naturally since voting has been consistently low in these parts over the decades. Talking particularly about Mumbai the normal voting percentage has been around just 42% taking all kinds of poll into account. This General Elections things seem to be improving quite a bit, but about Mumbai fears are still there. Only tomorrow the scenario here would be clear. Anyway, we will come to this first P of our subject that is percentage of voting later. The other two Ps are the absolute low points of this General Elections. ...

The Supreme Court of India gave a historic judgment today. The public litigation petition demanding the Right to Reject for voters had been pending for last nine years and Anna Hazare during his Movement against Corruption in 2011-12 made a lot of hue and cry for this too. Today the Supreme Court put its seal of approval on this. Now voters can reject all the candidates in his constituency if s/he thinks all of them are crooks and useless.   There will be a new option in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), ‘None Of The Above’, so that all candidates of all parties could thereby be rejected by the voter. Exactly when the EVMs are going to be adjusted or the date of effect to this decision is a matter of pure speculation at the moment. This is basically a negative vote, but the apathetic voters now need not sit at home and abstain from their constitutional duty. They can go to the polling booths and exercise their Right to Reject by voting for the new option. Maybe Voters’ Apathy ...

Thanks to Mumbai's poor voting, barely 40 per cent, few political leaders have demanded voting be made mandatory. Well, how do you enforce it? By getting the abstaining voters arrested or withdrawing basic facilities from them or making them pay more tax and money? Voters understand their rights and would always like to exercise provided they benefit from this. How their expectations are met? With more and more lousy promises? The terror trauma of 2008 will take time to get erased. This can only be done by politicians becoming accountable--offering concrete solutions rather than mere promises. We are not supporting abstaining voters; we are only trying to analyse this most serious trend for the largest democracy of the world. Trying to enforce democracy would be the joke of the millennium! Before making such demands so-called leaders should first introspect, introspect intensely.

Today, in the third phase of General Elections 2009 and the last phase in Maharashtra, Mumbai recorded only about 45 per cent of voting. Only seen in large numbers were the celebrities, politicians and the Bollywood stars. And why not, they will only be grateful for the bonus doses of publicity. There was total apathy from the common man. Maybe because of the fact that their problems remain always. Or maybe because of the soaring mercury. Or maybe because of the casualness of the Mumbaikars who like to plan weekends with this extra holiday on account of election. But the terror trauma of 26/11 may be the real dampener too. Most urban places of Maharashtra had poor turnouts and moderate polling in the rest. Many other states of India too recorded pathetic turnouts. This may really be ominous in terms of the possibility of a hung parliament. Indian democracy at the crossroads?

Why should we vote? It is because of two vital reasons. Firstly because it is our fundamental democratic right for which people struggled and suffered all over the world throughout history. Secondly because we must elect our representatives to form a government to give us good rule. When we vote we naturally express our expectations. We expect better times, solutions to our everyday problems, provision of minimum amenities for quality living and a good security environment. Politicians play on our expectations and make all sorts of promises to muster our precious votes. Most often these promises are forgotten or belied or abused. Some people stoically accept this as the most natural way of democratic life and do not bother about voting or not voting. Others get disillusioned and threaten to refrain from exercising their democratic right. The 26/11 Mumbai terror attack disillusioned many. They were horrified at the hollowness of the security system. They poured into the streets demandin...