Saturday, April 19, 2014

Whom Shall the Aam Aadmi Vote


The past few months have been an extraordinary one. Every generation has witnessed uprising. Be it our grandfather who witnessed the war against the British Empire or our parents who witnessed the Jai Prakash Narayan Movement, our generation is slowly witnessing what I would call the Swaraj movement.

In Lok Sabha elections 2014, India has got two options. Firstly, vote for what many people thinks as “experienced ones”. Here we have two political outfits, two substitutes rather, the Congress that seems to have lost its touch with the people of the country and the BJP which has turned into a one-man political outfit under Narendra Modi. The second option is the Aam Aadmi Party.

Let’s analyse each of these three outfits in the next three stanzas.

The Indian National Congress – the Grand Old Party of India has lost its touch with the common people and there is a widespread anger and grunt against the leaders of the party. However, every time the Congress seemed to go down it came back harder, thanks to its pseudo secular agenda. Rahul Gandhi, who is leading the party, is learning fast from his mistakes. While we would have preferred him to be more proactive, he did on occasions leap out of nowhere and given his bits on issues. Before you could comprehend what happened, what the prince of the Gandhi family said, he was nowhere to be seen. He spoke of empowerment of women, civil rights, corruption in a couple of lines but looking back at the past 10 years of his being an MP, the two things that I would always remember are: firstly, speaking of tearing up the legislation that wanted to protect criminal law makers in the Parliament; and secondly, profusely sweating in an interview with Arnab Goswami on Times Now. Rahul Gandhi would surely make a good leader one day but for 2014 it seems his chances are bleak…err, the Congress’s chances are bleak!

The BJP – a party that has its backbone supported by the RSS seems to have regained lost ground and not only so, it gained more than what it ever had! Ask any people what made this happen – they will all point to one man, its PM candidate Mr Narendra Modi. Modi has a strange habit of organizing big rallies that is packed with people from more than one state who travel by hired trains and buses meant for the same purpose. He then proudly advertises his “karnama” in Gujarat citing reports and figures where the reports are generated by his team and the figures from his own imagination. It’s very easy to spot, so whenever Modi speaks on a rally, he does not allow TV cameras to cover the event – all the broadcast that you see are fed by BJP’s camera. He does not dare to take questions from people, lest he be found fumbling with truth and desperate to run away like he did when he was questioned on hard to ignore facts in media, once by Karan Thapar and another time by NDTV. He also cancelled his interview in Facebook when he got to know that questions would not be scripted by his team but rather than the people. So do we want a PM who will go to Washington and tell “Each Indian on average earns 50000/- because of my 56 inch chest“?

If you are ignoring the Congress for the right reasons, voting the BJP would mean voting for the wrong reasons!

AAP is a fresh air amongst all these chaos. The media has tagged it as ‘chaotic’. Isn’t there chaos when we meet after a long period of separation? The media has tagged AAP as ‘anarchic’. Are the lives of the citizens not in total anarchy? Believe me, there is chaos and anarchy in AAP and for the right reasons. After about three decades a certain section of India has found hope in AAP. Every AAP member gets a tag of “leader, AAP” on news debates. Bingo! That is what AAP has set out to do. The idea of Swaraj means you are a leader and will tell the Government what you want rather than being burdened with the decision of the Government. A certain section feels AAP is “inexperienced”. The experienced always tries the same set of solution for the problems that have been plaguing the country since ages. The inexperienced will always take innovative ways. Yes, it might require time, they might make mistakes, but then do we really prosper without making any?

2014 is no such ordinary election year. You need to do decide which way you will swing! A leader who lacks maturity, a leader who bluffs if given an opportunity and run away from questions or a leader who says, “If we are in Government, you will rule”


Let India decide. Hope that we will make the best choice for ourselves with our eyes wide open.