The Urban Suave Voter: A Bloody Fool is he?

I am not here to negate or belittle the effort of ‘Tata’ tea and Janaagraha trying to bring these sophisticated mythical voters to stand in-line along with their urban proletariat in the same queue. It was an honest attempt to try and bring this urban suave voter to the polling booth asking them to Jaago re, the response was almost zilch.

The intention was right the content was great the visuals were hard hitting but completely failed to read the pulse of the ambitious under 25 Indian. These are the tech savvy, pretentious, credit card wielding populace. This constituency will take part in most of the online surveys and will stand in queue for hours for the 2 minute’s claim to fame on MTV’s roadies. You weren’t serious enough to energize or enthuse this lot to come and vote in an ‘Indian election’.

I am going way over board with my criticism of this citizenry, but I couldn’t help. Let’s just get into their shoes for a wee bit and try to solve this mystery. What appeals to this lot, what are their demands or aspirations? Or do they have any demands at all.

First of all this is a generation which wears “kurta / pyjama/ dhotis” to work and calls it an ethnic day. These Guys and Gals are most comfortable in their Jeans and T-shirts; we will hear them say stuff like ‘Wow, Rahul Gandhi is really cute’ ask them who the local congress candidate in their constituency is, and in all likely hood they will scratch their head. Now whose fault is this?

The political class still lives in the previous century; everyone from Rahul Gandhi to Rajiv Prathap Rudy wears Pyjama Kurta. Our 24X7 television channels add to this cynicism of this aspiring youngistan by contrasting our poll campaigning and candidates to US and Obama. The answer is Obvious; they are going to be more disillusioned since they are unable to identify with any of our Neta’s.

This is the blackberry generation, this voting class expects more, a mere ad campaign will not be enough, they need to see change and quickly, this is the lot that travels in air conditioned cars unlike a generation ago, their holidays might be a cheap Thailand / Dubai or our very own Goa. This is the lot which likes to shop Louis Vuitton wear Prada and eat sushi, even if they can’t afford it, they like to believe that they will one day make it.

We need a miracle and not an ad campaign to bring them up to Vote. Jay Ind !

The Muslim Vote Bank

It’s funny how every passing election; vote bank becomes an issue for the BJP as well as the Congress, one attacking, and the other defending the Muslim Voter.

I have always wondered if the Muslim Vote bank is for real or a myth, the reason as far as I am concerned is, if it is for REAL then there should be Muslim leadership that is in a position to deliver the Muslim vote en block to a particular party in every election.

If we looked around to get a feel of the Muslim leadership in India, it is rather saddening to see that a community of more than 170 million Muslims in this country is represented by Mulayam, Mayawati, Nitish, Lalu, Jaya and Karuna neither are any one of these leaders Muslim nor do they represent the community as a whole.

This is not funny any more, since half these leaders were or are in coalition with the BJP, look at Tamil Nadu where both the Dravidian parties enjoy a fair share of the Muslim vote and both have been BJP’s allies in the past and have no qualms aligning in the future and the Muslims continue to vote for these regional satraps knowing pretty well that post election anything is possible.

It is time for BJP and Congress to shut up and stop fooling each other since neither are going to represent the Muslims, If these National parties want to make a real difference, they have to look at an inclusive growth and carry the Muslims along, If they REALLY mean well for the community and the country.