Voters have to necessarily conclude that in conditions of little choice to make, they have to vote for the party that would do least harm in the next five years.
by N.S.Venkataraman
When elections take place, one political party has to necessarily lose and another political party has to necessarily win. In the type of conditions prevailing in India, where no political party or politician is above suspicion, voters inevitably face a dilemma while exercising their franchise.
Of course, there are pledged admirers for any political party or political leader. But, the neutral minded people and the discerning voters wonder as to whether any of the political party or the leader deserve to be voted in favour at all. In view of such feelings, which arise mainly due to the low credibility of the politicians, the number of voters voting for NOTA is steadily increasing.
The voters in Tamil Nadu are now facing such unenviable situation, as the election day is approaching.
Several poll predictions by different “media experts” have predicted that DMK party would get overwhelming majority in the Tamil Nadu election.
Nobody knows how the poll survey was carried out, who were the people really contacted and what they really opined. People have no way of verifying the authenticity or reliability of poll prediction but such poll prediction inevitably give advantages to the party “predicted” to win the election .
While huge publicity is given to such predictions due to media power, many people view these predictions with a pinch of salt, particularly since there is a developing view that the ethical standards of the media personnel ( particularly since most of the media are owned by business houses with vested interest or political parties ) are no better than the politicians and the dividing line between journalism and politics is becoming alarmingly thin.
Voters have to necessarily conclude that in conditions of little choice to make, they have to vote for the party that would do least harm in the next five years.
The fact is that looking over the sixty years of governance by DMK and AIADMK alternately , there is nothing really much to choose between them. However, the last four years of AIADMK government led by Edappadi Palaniswamy has less of negative aspects compared to the earlier six decades of DMK and AIADMK rule.
Edappadi Palaniswamy led AIADMK government has been in power in Tamil Nadu for around four years now and it need to be judged by it’s whatever performance over these four years. Certainly, Edappadi government has not done any spectacular job but certainly tried to maintain the political discourse at reasonably respectable level , in spite of grave provocations from DMK and has tried to focus on development activities. Law and order has been maintained at reasonable level and several unsavoury acts during the Jayalalitha government and earlier Karunanidhi government like land grabbing have not been reported in a big way.
Though it is a fact that Edappadi Palaniswamy has been invoking the name of Jayalalitha as his leader and has repeatedly said that his administration is inspired by Jayalalitha’s blessings,one has to think that this could only be a cosmetic political slogan , as Edappadi Palaniswamy has no big image as a political leader of standing , unlike that of Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi.
The opposition DMK does not have much to say in adverse terms about the present AIADMK government , except complaining that it is cooperating with the central government , as if it is a crime. It further says that AIADMK’s alignment with BJP will do extreme harm to Tamil Nadu, which is again a statement which has no particular validity except made for the purpose of creating a phobia as part of hate campaign. While DMK has been complaining about corruption in governance, it could have gone to the judiciary with any proof that it has to expose the corruption but has confined itself to provide petitions more than once to the state governor.
The fear uppermost in the mind of the people is that DMK is essentially a family controlled party and a government led by DMK would be like a feudal government of the yesteryears. The fact that DMK leader Stalin has nominated his son to contest election on DMK ticket in spite of his lack of experience ,over looking the claims of many other senior members of DMK , clearly highlight the preference for family members in decision making. Most of the campaign is made by Stalin, his sister and son , which indicate that the family culture is likely to become the political culture of DMK.
Like the feudal government of yester years , when the subjects would bow down and accept the verdict of the feudal family unquestioningly, the members of DMK behave in similar manner.
I have nothing in favour of AIADMK or DMK but I am alarmed at the possibility of Tamil Nadu government going under a family rule, if DMK were to win the election. Such family controlled government will do no good to the future of Tamil Nadu.
The fact that family controlled government could do enormous damage to the overall governance have been proved in several states in India as well as the central government.
In a scenario where the overall dismay in the governance by DMK and AIADMK in the last sixty years are very much visible, in voting the next government to power, Tamil Nadu voters have to decide whether bringing the government under the control of a family would be what they want.
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