Election time!!!

Election was held successfully in Tamil nadu by April 13th. This time less noise. Less glamor. Less publicity from parties. High security. Huge turnout. Great success.

Usually I have this image in mind about elections. Meetings will be held every other day to canvass the voters. Tube lights will be tuned on during the meeting nights and until 10, leaders of some party speaking to sparse crowd. Speakers blaring the achievements (?!?!?!?!) and promises of the parties in the form of voice or songs were the order the days before D-day. The candidates will be traveling in open jeep in sweltering heat to show their face for one last time to us and get the vote.

The above said things are all happened this time too. But very minimally. Here and there. Election commission once again showed what all powers they have to ensure smooth and money-free elections. The transportation of money was curbed by some effective checking across all the vehicles. For the 20 days prior to the election day, the cab I used to travel back to home is checked at various check points. Not one single time we were left. By April 10th night, the night before the last day for campaigning we were checked at at least 15 check points within 3 or 4 kilometers. And by morning also we were checked. Even though some of my cab drivers were irritated by this, I am quite happy. At least some steps were taken to reduce the distribution of money. I am sure Election commission was well organized and has done the job wonderfully. It takes a lot of courage to do this considering the kind of politicians we have.

Chief electoral officer Praveen Kumar said that,

This time, money distribution has gone underground. We have done our level best to prevent it. I don’t know whether the money distribution could be prevented even if we post one policeman per house.

The real fun part in this elections were the voice of our current CM and DMK leader M.Karunanidhi on election commissions activities. He was so frustrated that he went on to say ‘Election commission’s activities created an unannounced emergency situation in the state‘. DMK always thrived on money in the recent elections and no wonder Karunanidhi couldn’t handle the pressure from EC.

Also I guess the money involved for campaigning is very less during this election. I hardly seen the drawings of any party’s symbol on walls, flags of the parties.

My home is situated at the end of North Chennai and usually a quiet place insulated from the the Election’s frenetic pace.  But it went even quieter by its standards and I have seen only the BJP candidate who contested in my constituency as somebody associated with this election. Well that sums up the efforts taken by EC for people to led the normal life.

I voted this time (Hope I don’t miss to vote for any election till I die) but I am very much dissatisfied with myself. With no alternative I voted for the candidate I don’t want to. Maybe few of you can tell me the 49-O option. But I don’t think it serves any purpose. And I have few questions regarding it.

• Why the voter should declare his identity while casting 49-O?
• Why it is not taken into account?

If the no. of votes polled in for 49-O is higher than the votes got by any other candidate, the polling should get cancelled in that constituency and some alternative should be found to get somebody to represent that constitution. Hope EC finds a way for this.

Note: I am not going to say that this is my come back post. Beacuse I myself tried of saying that. I can just say I will try to be more frequent from now on, not only in my blog, urs too 🙂

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