Now, politicos should strive to protect democracy

Let the political parties which have won the elections with landslide victory be in a state of celebration for some more time before it becomes business as usual for all governments both at the Centre and in States.

The parties which lost the elections should get out of their state of gloominess, make a serious introspection as to what led to their defeat, work out strategies to stand by the side of the people.

The drubbing received by the Congress party at the national level and the Congress Working Committee meeting that was held on Saturday in New Delhi have brought out an interesting aspect of the general elections that is equally applicable to all other parties including the TDP which suffered major defeat.

While it is debatable whether there was something fishy in the functioning or malfunctioning of the EVMs, the human factor too cannot be ignored.

Several big leaders this time insisted and managed to get tickets for their offspring. There is nothing wrong in sons and daughters of senior leaders getting tickets.

Every father would like his children to carry forward his legacy, be it good, bad or worse.

But children should get tickets only if they have been in public life for at least last five years or so.

But whether it was in the Congress or any other party, insistence on giving tickets to sons and daughters did cause significant damage to the party as they did not have the support of the people.

There is an urgent need for a drastic change in the mindset of leaders.

They should stop thinking that a particular constituency is their jagir and just because people have been electing them for decades, their children would get elected automatically.

When it comes to elections, these great leaders whether it is Kamalnath in Madhya Pradesh, Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan, J C Diwakar Reddy and his brother Prabhakar Reddy in Anantapur who must have delivered several speeches on democracy in Legislative Assemblies or Parliament forget that democracy and people cannot be taken for granted.

The ideal way to initiate their children into politics and see them as their successors would be to make them grow from the grass root level.

They should first encourage them to take active part as an ordinary party worker, be with the people, earn their goodwill and then they should be made to contest the polls.

If they are given a few vehicles, money and muscle power and pushed into electoral battle, the results would be no different from what has been witnessed in the just concluded general elections.

These elections have also thrown up a new factor which needs to be pondered over by leaders of all political parties.

It is just not enough to have a visionary leader or a dynamic leader or a hardworking leader.

What has been observed of late, whether it is a national party, or a regional party, is that the entire responsibility of managing the affairs including ensuring victory of the contestants is left to the leader.

Leaders may be working hard but the workers have failed to take forward the policies and programmes of these parties to the people.

Another malice that plagues democracy is the concept of 'Aaya Ram Gaya Ram'.

The parties in power, in their overenthusiasm to decimate the opponents, encourage migrations and lure them with all kinds of promises including tickets for Legislative Assembly, Legislative Council or Parliament.

This affects the chances of the flagbearers of the party and they feel let down and disappointed. This leads to the cadre not taking active interest in ensuring the victory of the candidates.

At least now all political parties should wake up, introspect and go in for internal reforms and bounce back and protect democracy.