Well, who will become PM out of 10 contenders-Mayawati, Mulayam, Laloo, Paswan, Navin, Pawar, Deve Goda, Jayalalitha, Chadrababu, our brother Karat. With no numbers, we can expect elections within 2 years again. All the above leaders are suffering from corruption charges and have done absolute nothing whenevr and wherever they were in power, particularly leaders from Bihar and UP. Lady in question tops the chart in this regard. They have to prove their honesty and administrative skill first. Atleast in Manmohan and Advani, we find persons of personal integrity with administrative skills. Writer is sympathising to come closer to mayawati but have not touched any rational to justify the existence of these leaders in national interest.
There is a very disturbiong trend, wherein sitting MLAs and MLCs contest LS polls just for the sake of geting seats for their parties. On winning they resign from at least one post and that again calls for the by elections and againa the espenditure on elections. After all it is tax payers money that goes in it. All such candidates shpuld be barred from contesting or the cost of bypolls should be recovered from such contesting candidates... The money saved can be spent on better purposes....
the writer, seema mustafa, is right. the double standards of the so called indian elite shall be exposed. the caste and class prejudices shall be curved. the article is thaought provoking.
Congratulations!!! Reading a good article on rediff after a long time...the basic problem with the English media in india is the fact leaders like Mayawati and Laloo donot crave acceptance from them and this riles them...plus i smell a bias here..mayawati and co donot speak english well..the basic idea being if you pass off as suave and speak the language well, you can come across as 'clean'...
Seema Mustafa should be congratulated to bring attention to the importance of regional parties vis-a-vis national parties. The sad aspect, however, is regional parties are no different from the national ones. Just by being regional they do not automatically become desirable. The truth of the matter is no national parties (whether congress, bjp) were created without great ideals to begin with. During the course of time, their leaders opted for manipulated path to power rather than extending democratic-culture within their own parties. Most importantly they all (whether Nehru's congress or Vajpayee-Advani's BJP) failed to create right political culture and leadership in the nation. We are paying the price of failure of Congress, followed by BJP to demonstrate political leaderships were nurtured with desire to serve the nation with absolute integrity. Instead, people have begun to see politics as source of making easy money through abuse of power. Responsibility squarely lies with Congress/BJP.
Maybe time has come, when parties no longer should matter. What is required is-- individuals with integrity and nationalistic fervor, whether as independents or from any parties (national or regional). Leadership is not a number-game, after all. Let us hope the same begins to happen with this election and matures by the next.
maya may be a strong leader. she may hav appeal among a section of people. but how can one say that she can lead the country where there are not only hindus & muslims or elite & dalit but people are divided by lots of castes, tribes, colours, cultures & so on. head of a regional party can lead only that region - that too is not certain. why should the regional parties contest central elections? as such the central or the BIG parties also hav a representation in all the states. when you talk of bahujan samaj what do you think you are taking of? do the people whose support such a party claims cover entire country? instead an independant candidate is more eligible, suitable & competent choice to be a prime minister of this country. the only condition is that he's elected by majority of all indians not by majority of people of a region or religion or any such phenomenon. we DO NEED a thorough revision of our electoral system.
EC should come up with an amendment w.r.t. the eligibility of party(s) to contest the L.S.Election.
As an ordinary citizen, my suggestion is that the party or group should strictly comply to the following conditions ---
1) Any party or group, which is ruling in 03 or more states in our country.
2) The total number of L.S. seats of the states ruled by the party or group should be atleast 70.
If the party or group is asked to adhere to the above two conditions, then perhaps in the today's scenario, only BJP and Congress will meet the above requirement. May be the Left front may also qualify.
Atleast we Indians would be assured of one thing that i) they won't be hung parliament, ii) no horse trading to prove majority because if two or three party contest LS, then there is no scope and iii) the house will complete its full terms after every elections.
Let there be a national referrendum, what we Indians want.
truly, we are all fed-up with this multi party fight in LS elections, where the regional (many, many, many, .........) parties create just CONFUSION and NOTHING ELSE.
