Elections '09

so finally I write... after a long time... and after a long thought I decided to share my thought on the the current political fiasco in India...

time has come and we yet again face the Lok Sabha polls.. off late the coalitions has survived.. NDA started it and UPA followed from there on... but the question is will we ever see a single party at centre or ever go with the coalition government. This time the scenario is like never before.. starting from our current PM Dr. M S to LK Advani and others like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mayawati, Sharad Pawar, Nitish Kumar, Jaya Lalitha, Mulayam Singh and many other stand a chance to become the PM of the country.

Well these politicians will come , do nothing and go but there are issues...a lot of them... while sipping over the morning tea, watching debate between Kapil Sibal and Arun Jaitley me and my secular room mates had a debate between us.. let me touch base on some of them

1. Should there be a retirement age of the politicians?

If you see a government employee the retirement age is 62 and then live on pensions after that if he/she gets it. But the people who run the government for us there is no age limit. Why over and over again we have leaders who are about to die because of old age. Shouldn't we have much younger leader. In this country where we have majority of the population below 35 we have leaders above 80. Souldn't there be a blend of youth and experience? Why one should be 25 to contest election if there is no retiring age?

2. Should there be candidates with criminal records?

Each and every political party in our is full of candidates with criminal records. Murders, rape, kidnapping and what not.... and we look to them to lead our country. No minister with criminal record be given a chance to contest election.

3. Reservation?

Big question, time and again it has come and will continue to come. Should there be reservations against cast and creed? Why a person who is in general category and below poverty line should suffer. Its a responsibility of each and every Indian to file their taxes and based on economic condition reserve the seats. Why a person with merit should suffer. Give a national identification number to each and every one and then decide. If there is no metric to decide reservation then why divide India and create vote banks.

4. Shouldn't there be a cap on spending for election campaigning?

I got the knowledge that each and every member of lok sabha are entitled to spend a sum of Twenty Five lakhs rupees for the election campaign. But looking at the current way of spending there seems to be no cap on spending. Yesterday in one of the movie channels Partner movie was sponsored by Indian National Congress. I guess there should be limit somewhere to create a level playing field. Shouldn't our election commission be more active and strong?

5. Reason to fight election?

While there are usual issues like poverty, jobs, agriculture, economy and so on... our leaders rather talking on this issues are taking dig at each other. The only way they think to win election is to beat the hell out of the opposition. No one during the ongoing campaign has talked about economy, infrastructure, taking India forward but played with the blame game as they ever did. Whom should we vote for and why?

Well there are numerous issue which can be discussed but the question will remain whether we are moving forward with this kind of politics or these leaders are just playing with us and thus putting our nation at stake.

Should we vote, if yes then for whom?
Who will resolve the security issues?
Who will bring the economic stability?
Who will construct rather than divide India?
Who will bring in inclusive growth?
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