Quality of current electoral debate

I have been observing with some consternation the quality of speeches being made in the name of electioneering by various political heavy weights. If you could count your votes just by the decibel value, then I guess our elections are going to be a very close race between all the factions. All you can hear is election babble with no strains of any symphony which would sound as music to the ears of the masses. You have name calling and slanging matches between highly educated politicians which leaves one to wonder what these guys eat or drink before making their speeches which makes them leave their common sense and just blindly retaliate. All speeches which one hears or reads about in the press are reactive speeches – no one seems to be making a speech which is proactive and issue based.

If Modi calls the Congress a ‘budhiya’ party, we have Priyanka countering with BJP has the oldest candidates. If Varun Gandhi goes over the hill with his foot in the mouth disease and vile election speeches, you have Mayawati saying that he is a criminal and NSA should be applicable. Mayawati goes and claims that Azam Khan is not a criminal in her eyes as killing thakurs and higher castes was not a crime according to her! What kind of leaders do we have? a Nation which has produced such stalwarts like Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose, Lal Bahadur Shastri, et al, have to do with such a low quality of political leadership. We have Advani challenging Manmohan to a debate and Manmohan retaliating by saying he will not debate and give a chance to Advani to equate himself to the prime minister. Come on guys grow up, a debate is a debate, you can thrash out your issues and express your opinions in no mean manner – both of you have enormous intellect and it would be a show worth putting on.

I can understand the Congress saying that BJP is a traitor for capitulating during the Kandahar hijacking in 1999 and having Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh escort the three terrorists including Maulana Masood Azhar to secure the release of 155 hostages. Terror strikes led by Azhar and his group have killed more than 155 people since then, so obviously that was a moment of shame and we did not show the iron will required to deal with the hijacking. But when did this all begin – it actually began ten years earlier in 1989 when Kashmiri terrorists kidnapped Rubina Sayeed, the daughter of the Home Minister Mohammad Sayeed who was part of the newly formed National Front government led by VP Singh who had left the Congress to lead the Front. This ex-Congressman and messiah of the masses was the first Prime Minister to bend over backwards to free 5 jailed terrorists as demanded by the kidnappers to secure the release of Rubina Sayeed. If we had shown some guts at that point in time, I am sure history would have taken a different turn – unfortunately after that one incident we have been considered to be a soft State by everyone. The resounding message which should have gone was “WE DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH KIDNAPPERS OR TERRORISTS” – but alas that was not to be, and history has shown that we wilt under pressure. It is only when mass scale attacks happen that it is left to the military, which is THE ONLY SECULAR institution in this country to get rid of the problems. The Parliament attacker Afzal Guru has been convicted and given the death penalty, but has still not been hanged! What can be a greater shame and expression of cowardice than not hanging the convict? If there are doubts on his guilt bring it out in the open, else hang him and get done with it. Now it is the Congress which is dilly dallying for the Muslim vote. From this you can see that whether it is the BJP, the Congress or the so called Third Front, they all behave in the same way (parties without conviction) and do not act in national interest – it is all partisan, caste/community or religion based politics – and they all call themselves secular! What a joke!

The only secular institution should have corps built on castes according to Ram Vilas Paswan – is this what our intellectually bankrupt politicians think. They call themselves secular and BJP communal and want reservations in the Army for Christ’s sake! What really needs to be done, is to put all these so called leaders in front of the masses for being questioned. Let there be an open session – let it be on the lines of the World Cup in soccer, only the best candidates from all parties starting from the grassroots should be allowed to contest in the “finals”. The session I am talking about is the grilling of candidates by various citizen groups representing all the different strata of society. The candidate giving the best answers with ideas and plans for implementation of solutions to peoples problems should be allowed to proceed for the finals. We do not want any Mama’s boy or girl or some Papa’s boy or girl considering it their birth right to rule in a democracy. Let them prove themselves to be honest and dedicated workers for the masses rather than amassers of public wealth through corruption, maybe then we could possibly see some changes happening for the better.