As it is expected during the national election, all the politicians and the journalists are busy in projecting themselves how close to the 'aam aadmi' they are. The party manifestos talk about various issues ranging from foreign policies to education to employment to health care. Though going through the party manifestos one can realised how superficial they are. I have looked the manifestos of BJP and Congress party. It is hard to believe that Congress has a Prime minister candidate who is Phd in economics but the manifesto looks like a report of university graduate. BJP has thicker manifesto and has touched on many points of national importance. They are right or wrong on the stand they take is different issue but they have at least touch them and wrote their opinion in the manifesto. It might be that many of the promises are not feasible. For example reducing the income tax and increasing the salary of Armed forces and other benefits without generating lots of income from export or national consumption.
But party manifestos are there to be released by the party and then forgotten right away. Because for a country like India that has a very large young population and a large proportion living in the villages, these topics are not of much importance anyway. If from the development point of view, political parties segregate the voters then they should concentrate more on following issues
- Education and employment for the youth across the nation, not only in Delhi or Bangalore or other metros
- Health care facilities across the country at affordable prices
- Better irrigation and loan facilities for the farmers
- Pension and support for the old and disabled people of the country
But in the election rallies, politicians are not seen talking about these issues or concerned at all back stage either. Politicians are concerned about the segregating the constituencies on the basis of religion, caste or popularity of the film stars. What everyone is concerned about is how many Hindu or Muslim votes each party can get by supporting or condemning Varun Gandhi. Now congress is worried how much votes they will lose because of the Sikhs riots of 1984.
Even the most powerful pillar of our democracy is talking about popular subjects only rather than the real issues. Whole election campaign started by projecting Manmohan Singh and Lal Krishna Advani as Prime minister candidates but now it has moved away from them and each regional party is concentrating on winning 5-10 seats so that the head of the party can become cabinet minister in the next government. Issues of the 'aam aadmi' are forgotten in this quest of achieving power.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment