Election is about to be announced for electing Members of Indian Parliament. Vast size, huge number of voters in every constituency, multiple languages, varied climate and terrain-conducting an election exercise in India is neither easy nor imaginable in any other country of our size or population.
Despite such odds, every time our election commission showed their immense capability by conducting such a mammoth event peacefully and efficiently. It is the outcome of hard and sincere work by those election officials, temporary staff and police personnel who put in unimaginable efforts and co-ordination for a meagre remuneration while comparing compensation paid in other developed democracies.
We are lucky to have fair and peaceful election exercise and we should appreciate Indian Election Commission with sincere gratitude for such a selfless efficient service to us. The irony is neither we appreciate nor even thank them in our mind; considerable percentage of voters are unwilling to take small inconvenience of going to the polling booth and vote. Worse there are people who plan their holidaying on election day. We did take everything granted and very promptly complain for failure of elected government on one issue or other. Time and again we failed to fulfill the minimum required responsibility of electing the most deserving candidate, thinking that our single vote doesn’t matter. What is forgotten here is ‘drops make the ocean’.
“ Amount of money spent by candidates – especially in southern part of the country is unimaginably higher. The amount spent by a candidate in some constituency of Tamilnadu is so huge that we can conduct a complete state election in North with such amount” – this is the statement of a popular political consultant in his recent interview. Having spent such a huge amount it is no wonder such candidates joined together and ruined our country economics in the last 75 years. The exchange rate which was Rs 5 per usd in 50’s reached Rs 82 as of now is a classic indicator of large scale looting of our wealth by our own people.
Are we willing and ready to correct our past mistakes and use the golden opportunity of choosing the right candidate in the ensuing election on our way.
Are we behaving as responsible citizens and willing to do our bit in developing our mother country and its present and future citizens? Are we ready to spend time in knowing who are all the contestants and their real life history? Are we simply going to vote because we like a political party, political leader or we choose the best among the contestants in our constituency? Are we ready to forego religion and caste based hatred and choose the best candidate? Are we mentally prepared to forego the habit of herd following and willing to exhibit true patriotism?
Yet again an opportunity to make India progress the way we dream. Be kind enough to allocate time to analyse the resume of all the candidates and arrive at the best candidate; not the best party, best religion or best caste. Let us be responsible citizens and cast the vote to the best candidate. Best in terms of virtues and least sinful among the contestants.
