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.