May 16th - The D-Day

Today is the final phase of voting for the month long election which decides who will be the next prime minister of India. Personally I was really disappointed with the way the campaign was held all through the country. No political party talked about providing basic amenities for the people in the campaign even though their manifesto mentioned about it. The campaign was largely concentrated on attacking the opposition parties. No wonder why people threw shoes at these leaders. The main agenda in these campaigns was why people should not vote for the opposition party and not why they should vote for them. I was really amused at Congress leadership. They seemed to have different opinion among themselves. First it was Rahul Gandhi who praised Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu but they are sharing dais with their opposition parties. When they realized that Nitish Kumar will be part of NDA, they started to doubt his secularism. It is heights of hypocrisy. I did not understand Rahul Gandhi saying Jayalalitha a like minded leader. Congress being part of DMK, he said Jayalalitha a like minded leader, does this mean ADMK and DMK are like minded parties? It is like a=b and b=c => a =c. this is certainly not true otherwise there will be no opposition parties in TN. Moreover, these two parties’ rivalry hits the sky during the election and never subsides. Same can be said about Bihar where RJD and LJP are part of UPA but the congress is trying to woo JD(U) which is the main opposition of RJD and LJP. How the chemistry will work out between the Congress and JD(U) when they have RJD and LJP in their alliance. Similarly, TDP is their main opposition party in Andhra Pradesh but they are trying to woo them as well. I seriously doubt these people’s ideology. They can stoop to any level to form the government. What is happening in Rampur is disgusting. Jayaprada is alleging that Azam Khan is distributing nude pictures of her and Amar Singh is saying that Jayaprada will commit suicide if she loses (I don’t know whether Jayaprada knows about it or not). OMG, such a great country is ruled by such people. Above all, Mulayam Singh’s reply to a polling officer when he did not allow the black cats to accompany him.. “mujhe kanoon math sikao. Mein theen bar mukya mantri ban chukka hoon….” disgusting.

No one talked about security, food and water. All that these people talked are UPA has failed miserably in the past 5 years, NDA is not secular, Left’s ideologies are pretty old etc etc. No good speeches made. Where are the Vajpayees, Nehrus who are known for their oratorical skills. The congress prime ministerial candidate does not want to contest lok sabha. Amazing, it is the people who should elect their prime minister and not the party. I feel its time to amend the constitution and make it compulsory that the Prime Minister should contest Lok Sabha. He is one of the finest economists, a great academician, a great person and I feel he should have led from the front by contesting the lok sabha which he failed to do so. Next comes the NDA prime ministerial candidate who praised Jinnah for secularism, who led the yatra which demolished the babri masjid and who doesn’t know what is happening in the government when he was the home minister. I accept he is a great leader, better than Manmohan Singh when it comes to leadership skills and taking decisions but his past record and his extremism doesn’t support him to be the prime minister. Then the third front who doesn’t know who will be their prime ministerial candidate, no ideologies, no great leader in their front who have qualities of becoming the prime minister. The situation today is such that people are not ready to accept any of these leaders as prime ministers but the irony is no one is better than these people for the top job. Lets wait for the 16^th of May and we ll know what is India’s fate.