GENERAL ELECTIONS 2014
Narendra Modi as the prime minister of the country and the
BJP forming the next government are, at best, the choices forced by the
political circumstances in the country.
Yes, they are not the ideal alternatives an informed
Indian voter would like to look up to when he has a really different and worthy
option to exercise his electoral rights. But that is not the case. Arvind
Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party did raise some hopes but they look more as
aberrations now.
BJP, Congress, SP, BSP, DMK, AIADMK, BJD, NCP, TDP, JDU
and every other national and regional party is riddled with the common
pseudo-democratic practices parasitic on the Indian democracy. Every political
party has willingly contributed to the increasing political criminalization and
a chronic political corruption.
But being a country run by a Constitution led governing
apparatus involving elections to elect the governments at regular intervals,
the voters do not have any other option but to vote to elect someone to run the
country.
And this need to ‘elect someone’ pushes for the best
possible alternative available from among the pool of the political parties in
the fray that may not be even up to the mark when checked on the universal
standards of political probity.
Also, this decision to ‘elect the best possible
alternative’ is always not take rationally. The illogical but important factors
of caste and community are always on play.
As of now, we cannot bank on the pre-poll surveys for some
finality on the outcome of the General Elections 2014, but there are strong
anti-Congress sentiments across the country, across every electoral formation.
Almost every one accepts that, including the senior
Congress party leaders who are leaving the party like a sinking ship is
deserted or leaders like P. Chidambaram or Manish Tewari who are not willing to
contest this time due to the fear of certain defeat.
And the BJP (and the NDA) being the only political
opposition with an almost pan-India presence has gained enough traction to be
projected as making the next government aided by a strong personality statement
of Narendra Modi on administration, governance and polarisation factors.
People want change from UPA and Congress and that is why
they are voicing their opinion in favour of Narendra Modi, BJP and NDA but that
doesn’t make them the ideal alternative.
Rather, the political circumstances with anti-incumbency
against the Congress leading the pack of the factors make the NDA the
circumstantial choice of the voters.
If Congress is staring at a historical doom, it is because
people are frustrated with its politics that it has practiced in the last 10
years and they do not want to see it in power again; they do not want to allow the
Congressmen to decide on people’s lives this time.
And the way the BJP is accepting defectors from the
Congress party and members from other political parties of the UPA alliance, is
enough to tell us the voters’ compulsion to vote the BJP in.
A compulsion
that always has this in-built dilemma to know if the decision taken was right
or was a grave mistake!