Why should you vote ?

Earlier I thought I would never vote. Why should I vote for these corrupt politicians? I know many have this same question. Then I changed my mind. After all something is always better than nothing. As far as there is no option of “NO VOTE” somebody would be elected even if you don’t vote. So vote for better one ( I believe the better party).

Political party or the candidte?

Our constituency Kottayam had the largest number of candidates contesting form the state (20). But the contest was primarily between two contestants and I had to choose one among them. I preferred one candidate over the other as a person. Unfortunately as a political party I preferred the party of the other candidate. I was really confused whom to vote.

Finally I decided to choose  the political party. After all the policies of the political party matters more than an individual. Forget about regional development. That won’t be a lot different. They know very well that they have to face the people at least in every 5 years.  Only a stable government with less number of parties can take the country forward.   ( I hate this coalition government  and the associated  political bargaining).

Should there be a a no-vote option ?

Personally I don’t think this can make any difference.  And I’m sure at least for this state of Kerala number of people who would choose that option if available  would be very less.

My advice to all those who haven’t voted and are yet to vote would be to go out and vote.

Image: rediff.com

I think he is in many ways the most different candidate contesting from the state for many reasons. For many ordinary voters he is still alien in spite of the heavy campaigning done for Mr Tahroor. Some one who doesn’t speak Malayalam well, some one who was never seen in any of the political activities in the state before.  But there are some serious issues about Mr Tharoors candidature.

Mr Tharoor in his election website http://www.shashitharoor.in make his intentions and view about his constituency and politics clear. He has also explained ‘Why UPA ?’. Really I liked his website very much.

But there are some serious issues regarding Mr Tharoor, especially because  of his involvement in many controversies because of his view about Israel and Coca Cola. Many others believe he is an opportunist. The are still others who campaigns for him.

This makes it clear why the road is not that smooth for Shashi Tharoor. He has to face opposition from even within his party. Anyhow the result of the Thiruvananthapuram constituency will be a landmark in many regards.

The US elections and the Obama campaign was closely followed here in India also and the way Obama reached the youth and common people inspired many. Now it seems that the political parties are experimenting with similar campaigning tactics here also in the coming Assembly elections. The youth forms 2/3rd of the total population and the political parties are trying to reach them through the new age media’s including  the internet and mobile phones. While the Indian National Congress has produced some promotional videos (link) that are widely promoted over the internet the BJP goes much beyond that through official websites and forums. Through this BJP hopes to reach individual voters.

BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate LK Advani has recently launched his official website ( http://lkadvani.in). The site has an audio introduction by Mr Advani. It also includes a forum which has members close to 1K and covers  a variety of topics. BJP’s Delhi Chief Ministerial candidate VK Malhotra has also opened his official website(http://vkmalhotra.in) hoping to prevent Mrs Sheela Dixit becoming the CM for the 3rd consecutive time.

Advani plans to go obama way -NDTV news

All the parties have special internet units along with their media group that leads their campaigns over the internet. Both the Congress and BJP has their unofficial Orkut communities. While the BJP has almost 18.5K members the Congress has just over 10K members. Interestingly while searching for Congress or BJP at Orkut the communities ‘We hate congress’ and ‘We hate BJP’ also comes among the first few results.

In India these online sentiments can never be taken as that of the aam aadmi. These political parties still has to depend lot on traditional road shows and door to door campaigning to get their support. Hopefully these online promos might bring more youth to the polling station. And who know in the coming Parliament elections we might see some Google ads of these political parties.