Free televisions from one party and free power from another to stir them to life. Cheap rice to fill stomachs and free Lord Balaji darshan to satiate the soul. Voters/votebanks labelled and wooed based on their caste identities. Election manifestos bursting with freebies and potential votebanks getting their ‘once-in-five-year’ attention. But for the average urban Hyderabadi, the ride home is getting bumpier and longer much like their nights, which they spend tossing and turning coping with unannounced power cuts. The candidate from their constituencies, however, is busy battling bigger battles— that of winning the hearts of people with sops, that would fade away sooner than the colour of party flags in the bright sun.
Urban voters, battling the stigma of being the non-voting class, say this is the most “populist election’’ ever. “While urban voters were never the focus, earlier the elections were less populist,’’ says Anuradha Gudur, programming head with a television channel. She says that from water shortage to a serious drainage problem in many urban parts of the city, there are many concerns which do not figure anywhere in the clutter of promises being made by candidates.
Sandeep Agarwal, owner of a supermarket chain, says he feels disappointed to see that there is no focus or even clarity on urban issues. “The twoday power cut for industries is affecting business of people like me as our suppliers are unable to deliver goods on time. As a Hyderabadi, I would like to get these issues sorted out,’’ he says.
Citizens like Prakash Sagar, an advertising professional, say that issues such as fighting it out with auto drivers for not using the meter could be a daily feature in the lives of many people but are clearly of no importance or significance to any candidate.
Voters note that in the last election it was only Congress that was wooing voters with sops and a complacent TDP hopeful of an easy comeback was refraining from it. Having learnt its lesson the hard way, TDP has promised colour televisions, 20 kg free rice to BPL families and even pensions. Congress, on its part increased per head quota of subsidised rice by 2 kg apart from promising “assured power supply’’ in its manifesto.
That schemes such as those of subsidised rice have led to hoarding and black marketing are issues predictably ignored.
But what has irked many thinking individuals is the war-like posture parties are taking and the complete lack of objectivity in debates.
That the parties’ criticism of each other is limited to a satire on the sops the rival party is giving and not about loopholes in a long-term visionary plan, is telling.
Citizen activist VBJ Chelikani Rao says that even televised debates with citizens like him revolve around either being “for’’ or “against’’ a certain party. “You cannot have an objective view,’’ he says, questioning how any of the prevailing rhetoric would improve the “quality of people’’. “Are we becoming any wiser with this experience? Are we solving the problems (that affect us),” he questions, adding that if this election is another occasion to beat up each other, the debate would never get alleviated.
The disappointment among activists such as Rao who are keeping a hawk’s eye on how the election is conducted is obvious even as citizens such as Gudur say “crucial issues are never discussed’’. Some citizens like Ramnagar resident Margaret Roberts, say they have no reason to cast their vote since they do not figure in the scheme of things of any party.
No comments:
Post a Comment