Election India 2009: Election boycott

This is round 3, but phase 1 in West Bengal. For the first time you see disgruntled people boycotting the election from Dooars' tea-gardens down to tribals in Jhargram, Purulia and Bankura. There was no voter in 96 booths across the state. It was a great challenge for the Bengal Government as well as the Election Commission to ensure a good and peaceful election at tribal-dominated Lalgarh. They must be disappointed by the voters' response to various arrangements by them. People did not show any interest, for whatever reasons, in casting their votes. According to an estimate, just about 15% of the voters turned out.

The Maoists' call for election boycott is , sure, a reason for this low turnout. But people's disenchantment is another definitive cause.

But the election boycott is actually going to help the ruling leftists, and increase the odds of the Trinamul-Congress alliance.

Election India 2009: Phase 2

An average 55 per cent voter turnout in 140 Lok Sabha seats across 12 states and Union Territories. The prevailing heat wave may be a reason for the low turnout.

Barring some Maoist violence reported from Jharkhand and Bihar, it was peaceful compared to the first phase.

But the interesting thing about the election at this point is that politicos, unsure of the electorates' mood, are singing in different tunes now. Lalu Prasad has already pipped the Congress by commenting that the Prime Minster would be decided by all members of UPA after the election. Lalu, Paswan, Pawar - all primeminister- wannabes - show their leanings towards the Left. Even the Congress has publicly pronounced that the Left are not untouchable to them, and if necessary, it would seek help from them to form the government. Left Supremo Praksh Karat, still smarting under the blow dealt during Anti-nuclear deal, states that the Left would under no circumstances join the Congrss.

All these are of course crap. The fact is that these persons would move anywhich direction that would suit their purpose. It is all about power as well as Indian democracy.

Election India 2009: The show begins

The biggest reality show of the biggest democracy begins today. Today is the first phase of Loksabha election 2009.

So, how has it been so far? Mostly bloody. Five states - among them Jharkhand and Chhatisgrh and Bihar- face Maoists attack. Eighteen deaths so far. Security personnel, election workers, one common man. But no leader or political person as such.

No Maoist has been arrested so far. On the contrary, in a polling booth some policemen were so scared that they all fled to a Border Security Force camp for their life. Yet another proof that the Maoists are a formidable force, and can take on the administration any time in a lot of areas in India.

No doubt there would be more paramilitary force in sensitive areas in next four phases of the election. Especially in West Bengal. In Lalgarh, an adivasi belt, there's already a face-off between the tribals and the Government. People over there, recently victims of police atrocities, have driven the police out of the area, and would not let them in even during the election. Maoists are backing them. Since the administration seems to teach them a lesson, it would take this election time to enter the area with the election commissioner's blessings. Ther's going to be another bloodbath as in Nandigram.

Election India 2009: Slanging match intensifies

For me, it's more shocking than amusing.

I've never imagined India's top leaders could get to attack one another in such a lowly manner. Manmohon Singh, PM, usually regarded as a decent and dignified man, has also participated in this slanging match.

While the media - especially the electronic media - reports them all with glee, I hate to even hear or read them. It's sad that Indian politicos' electioneering speech does not have any real issue the country faces today. Which tells us about the exact status of Indian democracy and its custodians.

I liked L.K.Advani's proposal of a live debate on TV like we've seen it in US. Manmohon Singh dimissed it on the ground that that would amount to admitting Advani as a prime ministerial candidate. If Advani is not a candidate for prime minister, who is?

Though, to be fair, the way his party BJP has inserted ads everywhere, especially on the web, decaring Advani as PM, is ghastly, to say the least.

The truth is, neither Manmohon nor Advani has any quality for being India's PM.

Election India 2009: Congress sacrifices two tainted heavyweights

Jagadish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar are two Congress heavyweights who, the people believe, were hugely involved in Sikh massacres. But the Central Bureau of investigation, the country's top investigating agency, directly under Prime Minister's control, recently gave them a clean chit as if to facilitate their nomination in the election fray. They were duly nominated, and were set to have a go, but a size 9 Reebok shoe tossed at P.Chidambaram, home Minister, by Jarnail Singh, a reporter, in a press meet subverted it all. The duo were literally dumped. Tytler who was seen boasting that the Sikhs loved him, and he was of course going to contest the election, is now singing a defeatist tune: he does not want to cause embarrassment to the party.

Now, P. Chidambaram, the ever-smiling minister of Manmohan singh cabinet, said it with glee that he was indeed happy that Tytler had got a clean chit. He never expected that his words would trigger such a visceral reaction. Could he ever figure it out that in the end Tytler would finally be thrown out of the ring altogether.

So, the public wrath aptly symbolized by Jarnail's Reebok shoe does a good thing for the Congress: it sanitises the party in a way. Sure Mrs Sonia Gandhi has not totally lost her sense of perspective. But will the party fare well in the election, given its track record like its using the CBI to give Tyler a clean chit?

Election India 2009: It's time to be pro-poor

Rahul Gandhi, the redoubtable Congressman and India's Prime-Minister-in-waiting by his birthright, said in a meeting yesterday that the Congress is pro-poor. He could have come closer to the truth if he said the congress is pro-rich.

During the past five years of UPA rule - where the Congress was the dominant party - the country's poor people have slid further down into the abyss. Today, eighty per cent of more than one billion people, earn less than a dollar a day. They have been robbed of small things they possessed - a slice of land, for example- systematically by the Government's neo-liberal policies. They have not been provided any jobs even under the the 100-day employment scheme, promised during the last election. Manmohan Singh, the PM, has never really cared about the poor(remember the suicide of farmers in Nasik? He never did anything to get them out of their abysmal poverty).

It's not that the Bharatiya Janata Party has better track record. In terms of economic policy, it pursued the same neo-liberal line dictated by the World Bank during its rule, and is tied to Us of America in an abominable way.

Interestingly, both parties are now shouting for the cause of the poor. They are vowing to provide rice to the poor at Rs 2/3 a kg. Nothing can be more ludicrous.

Election India 2009: democracy's bad guys

IF it was Mulayam Singh distributing cash the other day, today it was Jaswant Singh, senior BJP leader, who was caught on camera doling out cash while campaigning in Rajasthan. This Singh has an army background, and was minister for defence in Atal Bihari vajpayee's government. No ordinary person by any means, but this is his sense of morality as far as the democratic election is concerned. The matter of the fact is that no political party is clean, and each of them is hell-bent to win at whatever means.

My morning paper - Bengali Statesman - has published a startling news: most hard-core criminals are now being bailed out of jails by political leaders for election purposes. They would be let loose to bully the people so the leaders can have their way into the ballot boxes in their respective constituencies.

Indian democracy has more facade than face. In terms of population, it may be greatest, but it is sleaziest too at the same time.