Parliament Election in Tamilnadu - 2009

13 May 2009, Wednesday – Election in Tamilnadu in single phase.

One more day, one more time it is election in Tamilnadu. This time the astrologers are predicting that due to the wrong positioning of the planets [!?*@] the government formed after May 16 will not last for more than 18 months. Probably, we could have had our elections after 18 months – or at least we should have had a top astrologer as the Chief Election Commissioner.

Jokes apart, election is a very important part of democracy and "To Vote" is my birth right.

After a very tight schedule of poll campaigning from coast to coast during a very short period of time, the leaders of various parties must be resting now.

This time, there were lot of eye opener campaigns to lead people to the polling booth to cast their vote. The prediction is if all the "well educated - middle class" people get up from the couch for one day, walk up to their polling booth, and exercise their right, for one time in five years, we can bring in lot of changes!

These set of "well educated - middle class" people are the one who take the maximum hit of the wrong politics and wrong politicians and that is the reason why they do not come forward to make a decision.

There is a Tamil song which goes like

"raaman aandalum, raavanan aandalum, enakkoru kavalai illa" [i am not worried if it is ram or ravan who is ruling].

The general feeling is "what change will it bring if i vote or don't vote? so, why should i even bother to vote?”

Yes, we don't have options. But, we can at least try to choose the best among the worst, isn't it? If i don't vote, then someone “WILL” on my behalf ;) Everyone knows this and no one can control this. At the maximum, they can only limit it to a lower percentage. So, at least, i will vote to someone who i feel to be the best fit among the lot.

The great role model of Indian Youths, Bharath Rathna Dr. Abdul Kalam came up with five pointers to measure the performance of a MP before making a decision.

1.       Assess the present  per capita income of the  constituency with an aim to increase the per capita income three times in five years.

2.       The present literacy percentage of the constituency has to be increased at least by 20% in five years.

3.       Take the statistics of number of water bodies in the constituency and their status. Work for the de-silting and interconnection of all the water bodies within the five years.

4.       Create programmes which will provide value added employment for every member of the constituency,  consistent with her or his qualification.

5.       Infant mortality rate of the constituency has to come down to less than 10 per thousand in five years.

I do not believe if any of the MP candidates would have even read and understood these points, but, at least I feel proud that there is someone with us who can give us such guidance.

If not now, at least sometime in future, this will be the defacto standards [and not the horoscope !] for choosing the person to represent our constituency.

I stood in the queue for about an hour, exercised my rights and expressed my faith to the greatest democratic country in the world. Did you?

- bright