[Reader-list] The VHP, Luxury Cars and Identical License Plates

[A.K. Malik]

Hi Rakesh,
              In 1984, any Tom, Dick and Harry fighting on the Congress ticket won may be because of Sympathy wave. Exceptions do take place. I feel wherever Candidates are strong ,they win irrespective of party affiliations.However,in most cases they would vote for the Party and not for the candidates.I have seen times when people had put their faith in Charishmatic leaders saying ki Nehru ko vote dena hai-not Congress ko.Same thing happened for Indira Gandhi later on.
Regards,

(A.K.MALIK)


--- On Fri, 8/28/09, Rakesh Iyer <rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Rakesh Iyer <rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] The VHP, Luxury Cars and Identical License Plates
> To: "rashneek kher" <rashneek at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Sarai Reader List" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Date: Friday, August 28, 2009, 2:03 PM
> Dear Shuddha
> 
> I can't agree with you on that primarily because of the
> following reasons:
> 
> The reason a party gets voted to power may not necessarily
> lie with the
> terminal state it finds itself in. For example, just
> because Manmohan Singh
> may be considered a 'weakling', or because Advani is a
> 'weakling', doesn't
> mean that their respective parties would or would not get
> voted to power.
> And there are many reasons for it:
> 
> a) First of all, the voting percentages are never 100%. At
> the best of
> situations, they reach about 70-75% of voting
> (notwithstanding some
> exceptions). So by that figure, about 25-30% at a minimum
> doesn't even
> decide the fate of candidates standing in elections, albeit
> for various
> reasons. This figure further slides to about 40-50% of
> voting for
> Parliamentary elections, the higher figures being observed
> for Assembly and
> Panchayat elections.
> 
> b) When one votes, he/she doesn't vote for a
> Modi/Mayawati/Advani/Sonia/Manmohan/Mulayam/etc.One votes
> for the local
> candidate, be it the Panchayat Sarpanch, the local MLA or
> the local MP.
> Therefore, to attribute a vote to the local MLA as vote to
> the BJP or
> Congress (or Manmohan/Modi/Advani) is quite wrong. There
> can be many
> examples to this.
> 
> Sonia Gandhi and other members of the Gandhi family win
> quite comfortably
> from the Raibareli and Amethi seats in Lok Sabha elections,
> but the same
> magic doesn't work in the Vidhan Sabha elections. Also,
> Narayan Rane was
> first in the Shiv Sena when he won his first Assembly
> election in his life,
> and when he defected to Congress, he still won the same
> Assembly seat.
> Therefore, those who voted for him voted for Rane,
> notwithstanding the party
> he belonged to.
> 
> c) When we vote for an individual, there are different
> factors to be kept in
> mind. For example, the caste of the individual, the
> individual candidate's
> religion, his work in the past (as previous MP/MLA), his
> image, his ideas,
> his illegal acts (involvement in crimes or acts of
> violence), his actions
> (in the past, which may have helped people or troubled
> them) etc. etc.
> 
> Therefore, to even attribute that a party got the votes or
> Modi (or anybody
> else) got the votes for that individual, is to completely
> underestimate the
> potential of the individual, which in my view is wrong, and
> should not be
> done.
> 
> d) Most of the candidates win by less than 50% of the total
> votes polled
> (and this when 100% people dont' vote, thereby meaning that
> in many cases,
> you have less than 50% of the total electorate having
> actually voted for
> you). In states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and even Tamil
> Nadu, we see
> phenomenon of candidates winning just 35% of total votes
> polled to win
> elections, which is highly dubious, thereby stating even
> majority of those
> who voted are against the candidate who 'won'.
> 
> e) Most importantly, politics is never fought on Sarai and
> internet lists
> but on the streets and heartland of India. The BJP may seem
> very weak on the
> national scale, but go to even Bhopal and Indore (or even
> Nagpur), and you
> will see a completely different picture. The BJP is as
> powerful as one can
> see. The RSS and BJP are completely linked in that state,
> and one can see
> actual connection between workers on the ground and
> ministers, though on a
> factional basis, trying to strengthen the roots of the
> party. The BJP is not
> out, and infact it's the states and the leadership there
> which is the basis
> of its strength.
> 
> Even the Congress, is actually turning into the similar
> way. The winning
> 'formula' of Sheila Dikshit and Y.S.Rajshekhar Reddy has
> ensured that they
> have become state satraps, and while loyalty to Gandhi
> family would be still
> important, these satraps in turn would look to delivering
> seats for the
> party in return for rewards for themselves, which is still
> going on and will
> continue.
> 
> Even the SP and the BSP will still be voted back to power
> or thrown out
> alternately leaving space for the other. So too for the
> other political
> parties. As I see it, parties are not going out.
> 
> Now comes the idea of bankruptcy of ideology. The fact is
> that Indian
> politics has no ideology, except that politicians always
> look to earn money
> through dubious means, in as many ways as they can. All do
> it. The Congress
> does it, the BJP does it, the Left does it, so do the
> others. They are
> bankrupt of ideas, but where is this 'new order' we are all
> talking about?
> Nothing doing. There is no order, or if it is there, it's
> among the great
> elites and middle classes.
> 
> The political parties being talked about as dead and failed
> are actually
> alive and kicking in the states, and we are all celebrating
> through PIL's,
> through discussion forums and other ways (things which
> Jinnah may approve of
> as 'parliamentary' and 'legitimate ways', as he used to
> state his own part
> during the 1910's and 1920's freedom struggle), rather than
> going out on the
> streets and fighting and struggling to show what these
> parties are, and
> actually trying to tweak and twist the system. (The only
> twist I keep on
> hearing are in songs: ' We twist' from Love Aaj Kal and one
> Manna Dey song:
> 'Aao twist karein')
> 
> We are a part of the system, whether we like it or not. We
> can't always be
> aloof from the system and hope that it will get better on
> its own. We have
> to play a part. And this celebration of bankruptcy of
> higher echelons of the
> parties like BJP, Congress, SP and BSP is not going to
> help. If anything, it
> will still be a disaster as these parties will still keep
> getting re-elected
> back into power, and with no ideas in their heads, we will
> be further stuck
> in our goals of development and well-being of the society.
> 
> Which is why I felt sad that BJP has come to this passe,
> because the idea of
> cornering the UPA govt for its failures is lost.
> Entertainments are good,
> but I too know the BJP is not out. But this will only mean
> loss of focus
> from important issues, which is not what should happen.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Rakesh
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