Election time: All that matters is how to cling or come to power

‘The Epic battle, Mahayudh between Maha Aghadi and Mahayuti, first major polls after Lok Sabha elections, last major election of 2024, first main electoral battle between AAP and BJP in 2025,’ this is what the country has been hearing and facing since second half of 2023.

It started with elections in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in November 2023, then came the Karnataka and Telangana Assembly elections followed by Andhra assembly and Lok Sabha elections and general elections of 2024 followed by Haryana Assembly elections in October and now the Jharkhand and Maharashtra next week. Even before the dust of these elections would settle down, the fight for gaddi in Delhi State will begin.

This keeps all the political parties tied down to work out strategies on how woo the voters and how to mobilise funds. All leaders and parties will be busy working on how to attract women voters, how to divide people on basis of caste and religion, how to woo the muslims, the SCs and STs, what freebies should be announced without any consideration for the economy of the state that is going to polls.

About four decades back, the focus of the campaign used to be on some promises and catchy slogans and highlighting their earlier achievements. But now intellectuals (if I may call them so) are hired to bring in as many disruptive elements as possible into the poll campaign. We have seen of late how the issue of Waqf, the funny narrative regarding who is the protector of Constitution, Mohabbat Ki Dukan, Nafrat ki Mandi, Urban Terrorism, Fata Fat Khata Kat have become the main issues of campaign.

The parties which lost polls in the past used to fight against the ruling party on issues, scams, omissions and commissions but now a new trend is those who lost elections want to create disturbance in society and put hurdles in the acts of the government to take up developmental activities. The leaders of the parties which lost elections refuse to go to the Assembly.

We have another funny breed of leaders like Y S Jaganmohan Reddy who demand that they be given the status of leader of opposition even if they do not qualify for it as per the rules and decide not to go to the Assembly since the Speaker refuses to accept his demand. “To hell with rules, it must be given, or I won’t go,” is the argument. Not just he, the entire party decides to boycott the Assembly. This is an insult to the people who voted for them and gave them about 40% of vote share.

In Telangana we have the leader of opposition who is also the former chief minister who did not attend the Assembly during last one year and feels that people have realised what the state has lost by electing Congress party to rule the state. The big question is what should be done in the case of those who refuse to go to the Assembly and yet have no qualms in drawing salaries and allowances, which is the hard-earned money by the genuine taxpayer who has no way to escape the tax net.

Industrialists or big businesspeople may have several ways to either reduce their tax burden or evade but not the meagre earning employees for whom tax is deducted at source.

No political party will speak about it. Not even the NDA government led by BJP thinks of finding a solution to such issues. None of the so-called intellectuals belonging to any of the major political parties like Congress or members of the INDIA bloc or the aspiring PM Rahul Gandhi talks about it. He is more concerned whether Modi has read the Constitution or not and caste census for narrow political gains not major issues that need reforms.

The parties which have lost elections more so in the two Telugu states the BRS in Telangana and YSRCP in Andhra are more focused on how to create disturbance in the state, how to create law and order problem. These parties which did not batter an eyelid to arrest people when they questioned the government today are crying hoarse that their activists and leaders are being framed and arrested.

Another major menace that is causing great concern is the social media handles. Innovations in technology are meant to make life easy but our politicians are making best use of it to make the lives of people miserable.

Every party has a social media network employing some people and a big team of paid artistes who are told what to post. If they use these handles to educate the people and create awareness on various policies of the government or analyse them and explain them to the people it is fine.

But these social media activists use the platform to troll the leaders and post vulgar comments on women politicians, open fake accounts to post fake news and even threaten their family members particularly women and children of rape. The language they use is most derogatory.

When action is taken against those who have been posting them, these activists reportedly say that they did on the instructions of the topmost leaders of the party. But the top leadership of these parties alleges that the police system has collapsed and were filing cases against innocent people.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court had a couple of days back made a strong comment when YSRCP activist and a former journalist approached the court asking it to direct the government to stop arrests of social media activists.

The Court said why these parties were silent when even Judges were trolled and comments against them in abusive language were posted and what is wrong if action was taken against such people. The Court said such people need to be brought to book so that there can be an end to this menace.

Such misuse of technology and how to control it, well no party is worried. No Khatakat Fatafat concern is shown on such issues. They want to follow the colonial system of dividing people and win votes. They want appointments at every level based on caste reservations. In the last 75 years they did nothing in the direction of skill development and ensure that the country has trained human resources.

Just caste cannot be the criteria for any appointment. One should empower the weaker sections and then yes, they can be elevated to the highest position. The concept of distributing jobs or income based on demography is not the way to take the country forward. But who is bothered. All that matters is how to come to power.

It is high time the voters should start thinking whether the political parties should be allowed to get away with their theatrics. They should also think whether one nation one election should be implemented so that the political executive will learn to work more seriously for the development of the country and does not get bogged down in poll campaigns and mobilisation of party funds for elections.