A Crowd of Many PM Hopefuls; but No Crowd Puller

…netas deserve vehement criticism for preferring not to note that the public disinterest to voting may be because of very personality-driven electioneering in the first place. How can they ignore that the current zeitgeist does not centre around a man, we, for that matter, no longer have a leader who can enchant a crowd to polling booths to vote for him…

Saurabh Dharmeswari

Midway Lok Sabha elections, immediately after second phase of elections drew to a close, the Congress and the BJP leaders discover asudden that they don’t actually have any good chances with their designated prime ministerial candidates, and there follow a rapid round of noises about possible replacements.  

The reason: electorates have shown less interest in voting this time, 5% less according to some vague figures, and the hazy picture of a hung parliament – hung in terms of political alliances like the UPA, NDA or the Third Front not receiving a majority, that is – got crystal-clear before their eyes clouded otherwise by false self sufficiency.

Netas have gone about responding to the lower voter turn out in yet more dismal, disappointing way, showing no sign of learning from their recent mistakes. Okay, the turn out may be lower in cities due to extreme heat, in villages due to harvesting of crops; and even inaccuracy in voters list could be a reason.

Netas, who earlier forced personality-driven election on the country pushing two biggest real issues of the time – terrorism and economic down turn – aside, have gone about responding to the lower voter turn out in yet more dismal, disappointing way, showing no sign of learning from their recent mistakes. Okay, the turn out may be lower in cities due to extreme heat, in villages due to harvesting of crops; and even inaccuracy in voters list could be a reason.

But, a palpable activity of finding a new face for prime ministership even inside the Congress and the BJP, let alone the trend of regional parties to pin hopes on Mayawati, Sharad Pawar or Nitish Kumar for leading a Third or Fourth Front, suggests that people’s indifference to voting should not be attributed to just aforementioned factors. After all, Indian politics might be at a point which ushers in a trend of even political alliances – just like political parties – not winning public mandate. 

In my view, Netas deserve vehement criticism for preferring not to note that the public disinterest to voting may be because of very personality-driven electioneering in the first place. How can they ignore that the current zeitgeist does not centre around a man, we, for that matter, no longer have a leader who can enchant a crowd to polling booths to vote for him! Whether it’s current PM Manmohan Singh or BJP’s prime minister in waiting, as the party puts it, LK Advani. 

As a democracy India has come a long way, and is growing and maturing, in which an electorate, well, a rural one, too, wants to know how an election is going to change his conditions of living, how it will add to his children’s health care and education and how it will metamorphose and elevate country’s position internationally. Alas! I don’t remember any politician approaching any of these topics this election season.

Ironically, LK Advani is busy in declaring PM Manmohan Singh “weak”, in calling Singh to a live public debate on failure of his governance – analysts say that ideally it should have been Manmohan calling Advani instead – and proving his own self “strong” for his party manifesto offers a “strong leadership” for people to buy.

Liberal Manmohan Singh is no behind, he astonishes everybody by not forgiving this big-mouthed “Iron Man” of the saffron party any longer, and chooses to waste his time in announcing that Advani is no prime ministerial candidate. He does it, of course, to down play BJP’s blasphemy of him for the first time in the last five years. And while doing so, he is obviously a candidate, not a PM, as political analysts say.

No surprise, poor people occupied in harvesting crops and upmarket crowd relaxing in air-conditioned homes elect not to elect anybody by not even turning up at polling booths in scorching heat. It is their way of making a noise, a mute noise.

The way a plethora of prime ministerial candidates appear out of blue after second phase of polling, the way possibilities of political re-alignment at once came to fore, goes on to show how politicians look at polls. For them, elections seem to be a vehicle for a man to reach 7 Race Course Road

The way a plethora of prime ministerial candidates appear out of blue after second phase of polling, the way possibilities of political re-alignment at once came to fore, goes on to show how politicians look at polls. For them, elections seem to be a vehicle for a man to reach 7 Race Course Road with a cocktail team to occupy the place of his predecessor. Nothing more than that. In fact, the lower voter turn out is more likely attributable to this mentality of these chaps. Voters vote to better their destiny, not politicos’.

Apparently, people are nearly convinced that these boisterous fellows really do not have a defined vision of taking India forward – if any party has one, why has it not made electorates aware of it by converting electioneering into an awareness programme as Tony Blair did in UK in nineties and as Barack Obama did in US last year. Voters are sure that they are once more into a virtually meaningless, non-result-oriented, futile poll exercise.

Electing not to vote, they are in fact presenting a life time opportunity for politicians to change the face of India politics for once and all. Ah! But there is a statement from strong leader LK Advani that voting should be made compulsory. I doubt if the suggestion takes birth from a democratic framework of mind.

Lastly, at a time when a political party or an alliance, so as to speak, is expected to win back public good-will by beginning to address significant public issues genuinely so that poor voting percentage can be thwarted, they gift us a crowd of PM hopefuls who are, again, no crowd pullers.   

Does India really buy this approach?