Electoral Prudence

We have been hearing a few stock rhetorics from our political parties every time when a general election to the parliament is round the corner. With 2019 general elections not far from us, we have started to hear the same thing again now. The magniloquence which has started catching up includes the usual stock words or phrases like ‘Grand Alliance’, ‘Third Front’ (no pun intended), ‘common minimum programme’, ‘like-minded parties’, ‘reinstatement of democracy’, and so on and so forth. A hotchpotch of about two dozen political outfits with conflicting and mutually antagonistic interests (not ideologies) is now thinking of coming together and fighting the elections.

We have a few previous instances where we have already seen that after somehow managing to manoeuvre a majority through an alliance of convenience, such groups of political outfits including some misfits are not able to run a government even for a little more than half of its full term. No naive person would ever believe that such a group will be able to provide a stable government with a concrete plan and consensus policies. Every right thinking citizen in the country would earnestly believe and hope that only a party or alliance which can provide a stable government lasting its full term would be suitable for India. By handing over power to a hotchpotch alliance, the electorate is only knowingly becoming party to the premature death of a government and inviting an uncalled for mid-term election which is a highly expensive proposition. This is a matter which the electorate should seriously ponder.

As responsible voters we should not miss out on the larger picture - the politics of nation building. Coming together is good; but ideas and ideologies have to converge to a common ground, i.e. building a great nation, a super power that is India. Nation building should be kept above everything else. The electorate has a great responsibility in building up the nation. They are not gaining anything out of petty politics. They should learn from their past mistakes.

The electorate should definitely ponder over this ignoring all political considerations. There begins the building up of a nation which brings pride for all Indians irrespective of politics.