It’s a tough decision, to vote. Despite all the eye-catching campaigns by well-meaning social organisations, despite a new-found willingness at a personal level to own up to all the political mess in the country, despite the anger, despite the frustration, despite everything, there’s nothing to vote for. Really.
Everybody knows that. One of the TV campaigns in fact urges viewers to vote not for, but against, this and that. Our national leaders – a breed that’s in real danger of extinction – too give us ample reasons why we should not vote for their rivals. Somebody is a puppet, somebody is a traitor, somebody is a liar. And everybody is too old and too mean and too bloody full of each other to do anything for the country.
After winning the race for Satyam Computer Services by valuing the IT outsourcing company some Rs 700 crore more than the second-highest bidder, TechMahindra chairman Anand Mahindra said, “The best runner runs the race without looking behind.” It’s clear that there are no good runners in the political race for the central government.
As you sit in front of the TV, your right thumb constantly working on the remote, watching who you thought were the most respectable leaders in the country accusing each other of this and that and everything in different poses and backgrounds on different channels, resembling quarrelling fisherwomen in the noisy fish market in the coastal town that’s your home, as you see excited supporters burning effigies and pelting stones, and as you wrestle with newspaper sheets full of charges and counter-charges, somewhere it strikes, it strikes very strong, that nobody is worth your vote. Nobody.
