Thane was among the 10 Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra that went to polls today. And after missing out on the Corporation elections an year after turning 18, I was determined to vote this time around.
However, the party positions and choice of candidates led to an interesting predicament.
History: For the last 2 decades, Thane has been consistently with the BJP-SS combine. The rise of Anand Dighe thru 90's ensured that the Late Prakash Paranjpe won Thane comfortably in '96, '98, '99 and '04 (until his demise in Feb. 2008).
A few factors have completely altered the political equations this time.
1. The (engineered?) accident of Dighe, means Thane has no single organizational center.
2. Prakash Paranjpe was very loved for being a cultured and clean person in a populace dominated by Middle Class Maharashtrians. (He died due to Cancer in Feb. '08).
3. Following delimitation, the middle class voters of Dombivili, Kalyan were moved to Kalyan LS Seat. These were staunch BJP supporters but did vote for the SS candidate (given Paranjpe's image and so on.)
4. Raj Thackrey commands sizable youth loyalties.
5.
Come '09: I would expected to be dictated by Family, Social traditions to vote BJP-SS. However, I am largely satisfied by the UPA performance in the last 5 years and very happy that they had balls in the N-Deal faceoff!! The only major disappointment was Affirmative action.
However, I am not of the opinion that party affiliations should override the candidate's suitability when voting. And you too wouldn't want Dr.Sanjeev Naik to be your MP. His affidavit says he is 12th pass, but has no qualms about attaching a Dr. before his name. (Some unaccredited US group has conferred this degree.)
I don't even want to get started on the SS candidate.
The only gentle
1. He is LLB from Bombay University - a farcry from both.
2. He figured 16th in the SSC Merit List (unconfirmed)
3. He has no criminal cases against his name - unlike Naik and Chaugule.
The clinching reason for me was the fact that while he might agree with the MNS philosophy he has never been associated with any rioting, vagrancy. So for me it came down to choosing between:
1. A good candidate belonging to a party with a off stream agenda or
2. A candidate with questionable character who would most likely bring the UPA to power.
Party vs Individual : What would you do? Let me know
--
Edit:-
The panwalla shop gossip indicates that MNS might play spoilsport and even trump SS in the Thane Assembly Constituency!
16 comments:
A very nice article indeed. In my constituency also, it is a three way battle between the veteran BJP_SS candidate Ram Naik (who is too old in my opinion, and eventhough people say he has done good job for the people of my constituency, his stint as the Petrleum Minister was not good), Sanjay Nirupam (I will never vote for a politician who participates in Big Boss), and MNS candidate Shirish Parkar. And I chose MNS for reasons similar to the ones you have mentioned.
Very good article. Comprehensively reflects views of educated young person.
yaah really very good
I would like to vote to the party and not indivisual
as this is national election.
though i support nda but if u r one satisfied with upa i would say u shud have voted for naik.
we all want bipolar elections or elections with few parties all giving good candidates
for acheaving this we can either go like first good candidates and then less parties or first less parties and then good candidates i dont know why i think second will be better
I think you did the right thing!
- UPA is not counting on the Thane Lok Sabha Constituency.
- Shiv Sena is taking the constituency for granted!
- MNS has its weird policy and thought process, but there is no way you can change/affect them.
At this point, voting for a right candidate is the best you can do to give a 1/Crore th signal that you want to reject criminals.
I would have done the same.
to be frank I am not quite sure that a degree and good educational qualifications guarantees a good politician ... there can be uncountable cases of educated people being immature and corrupt and just 12th pass people who are in touch with the needs of the people , etc ... although certainly the percentages increase with the level of education
the party vs candidate debate is quite tricky ... personally though i would go for the party
I posed this question to Mrs Kiran Maheshwari (MP) on a train. Her opinion was that one should vote for the party because basically its the broad policies of the party that will hold sway over the term of the Government and the individual MP will not have substantial say (unless he himself represents a strong power center within the party).
OTOH, an MP who is active in working for his constituency might do you some good, though again, if he's not from the party in power, not much might happen.
Ideally, you'd think that just having smart and educated people in parliament would do good for the country. Unfortunately, even you and I may differ on what we think is "good for the country" and so may the people in parliament.
So the short answer for me - I guess - is to vote for the party. In parallel, we might think of ways to force parties to put up more upright and educated people as their candidates.
@Samant: I guess pretty similar situation to ours :) Unless, MNS delivers the seat to an unwanted third party / front, we should be ok!
@Anand: Thanks man. You here for the first time?
@pannna, Anchit, Pari:
The individual vs ideology debate can't be done away with by saying that party ideology would have a say in matter of national concern.
The reasons for that are:
1. There is very slim difference between the 2 leading fronts on any issue. Take any issue in {Security, n-Deal, Economy, Reservations}. Did the NDA take a radically different stance to UPA? All the talk of 2 fronts is shaky when parties + leaders shift to antipodal alliances, days before during and after the elections.
So what does an average voter choose from? Hinduvta vs Minority appeasement? Neither works for me, personally.
1'. Whos to ascertain that if I vote NCP (thanks to Singh et al), Sharad Powar won't walk out of UPA if hes denied a plump ministry?
2. I expect a great deal from my MP (and am very much within my rights to do so!) I don't see why some rascal (once elected to the seat) should get to defend it year-on-year just because he belongs to the right party
2'. Ram Naik kept on winning until an anti-NDA wave took him down, only to be replaced by Govinda. If a person still believes in UPA should he have been (in the case, he would have stood) voting for Govinda again?
3. Aren't these people the ones who go on to make the legislative parties and present a representative opinion? Party tickets, however aren't handed out to the person who represents the populace.
I personally too would like a bipolar parliament. Maybe Ambedkar needs to rise up and (among other things) explain clearly what the then drafters of the constitution expect a voter to vote on!!
@Anchit: Agree that educational qualification is not the best measure of being a worthy MP .. but in absence of many other indicators, its the best we have.
@Dada: Hope so :)
@pari:
Individual MPs better start having a say, rather than some unconstitutional powers! And how better to convey to the parties that we disagree with their choice of candidates and more - than not to vote for them. Its not everyday that they stand to our scrutiny or even talk to us.
Maybe some electoral reforms are called for - including a need for Direct Election of the Executive.
Really nice post. Given your choices, the MNS guy probably seems the least-worst (i can't bring myself to say best, thanks to his party affiliations) choice. While the individual is a helpful factor in making a decision, his/her party surely cannot be ignored. We should not forget that when voting in local policy makers (your local MPs), we are also indirectly voting for the same party's state/national policy makers.
And I definitely agree with Anchit about education not being a good indicator of a good politician. A past record of public service is probably the only indicator that can and should be used.
@shashank - just out of curiosity, why do you say "I will never vote for a politician who participates in Big Boss" ? :D
@ Shantanu- agree to what you think and really appreciate the whole thought process that you went through.
Personally I was confused myself about the trio in the fray our Thane constituency!
But the fact remains who are we voting for? State/Local/Center.
I think I have added responsibility as a voter to think beyond Thane this time.
Did UPA affect me- yes!
Did NDA affect me- yes!
UPA- kept silent when doctors were lathi charged for protesting against reservations in higher education. First such Lathi charge in Mumbai in years.(tried to find about other lathi charged but couldnt find any)
NDA- kept silent when women were thrashed for being in a bar or wearing jeans!!
So there is a difference and that is why we have the dilemma as well.
Again I will go ahead and say voting in national elections I will go for national issues...Economy,N deal and others are internationally tied issues.. and all parties I think do have similar agendas except may be communist parties.
If you look at the manifestos of UPA and NDA and agree on what they may do and see their vision of change or betterment I would vote based on that agenda...
I - We then as voters can question them for not sticking to the agenda...
Given the model of democracy which we follow we can only do so much..
I think this is appropriate to post this link here
http://www.neverforget.in/
My pick- Individual
If you are looking from the perspective of bringing a change to current politics, then the question boils down to choosing between top to bottom approach or bottom-up approach.
I find bottom-up approach more appealing, as I think it is the way ahead to go for politics in long term. I am of the opinion if we send right people to the parliament, things will improve for the better although it may take time.
There is one more aspect to it this debate, who decides the parties policies and direction? In current scenario we have a very small set of people in each party which dictates terms and directions. By choosing ideology over individual we may constrict the space for ideologies/policies to flourish. I think ideologies/policies should evolve with time to reflect the changing times, and for this to happen we need right individuals to be elected to parliament.
I disagree with the choice made, but ofcourse I donot know the entire details except those provided in the post.
and did I hear the UPA did a "decent job". Sir, do I assume that you dont live in India or more specifically in Mumbai ?
I dont want to get into a monologue, but there are way too reasons (in this election) not to vote for UPA- right from devaluation to the post of a Prime minister, to thawing of Quottrochi's accounts, giving incentives to sycophancy and corruption, etc. It is laughable when the PM(head of executive) says he didn;t know that the CBI thawed quottrochi's account - IF a CEO says, I didnt know my company was doing X,y,Z things he'd be fired immediately. I will stop here, but answer to your other question - Party or MP.
The answer is unless the candidate is a criminal - vote for the party. I've written more here Reasons include the anti-defection law, MP being part of legislative more than executive etc etc.
And the fact that educational qualifications don't mean nuts in politics is clear when you look at stints of Chandrababu Naidu (when he was in power), or Nitish kumar or should i mention (gasp..) narendra modi
and compare them with that of Dr.Manmohan singh.
Perhaps he is astute, perhaps he is well intentioned, but remember "Road to hell is paved with good intentions".
Please excuse me for the rant..
Ideology insist that we should look at national interests when we vote. But who cares now?
Someone who can make our lives a tad better is preferred than someone who can effectively close a hard fought N deal.
That is how a persons mind works. Remember, Capitalism works only because each individual thinks only of his own profit. So this nation minded ness surely isn't gonna work.
I'm all for the individual stand. If UPA suffers a shock, let them. This will prompt them to look for "better qualified" individuals with clean record to stand as candidates.
Keep on voting for some under qualified dim wit, and the party won't even bother.
So the only way to make the party do something is to vote for the right person.
@Shantanu : Very good article, voicing a very relevant issue.
-John Joy
In my opinion, when it comes to the MP elections, one should consider voting for the Party but not compromising totally on the candidate.In my constituency, Sanjay Nirupam was ruled out the day they annouced him, Shirish Parkar may be educated and stuff but has done nothing(I dint even like the way he spoke) and BSP I dint vote coz honestly none of them have done anything at all for the constituency, Ram Naik might turn 80 but the party will continue working.I also did a story where in we checked if people even knew the constituency they belonged to, sadly they barely knew the candidate and still vote based on earlier ideologies. The innumerable Meet your Candidates meetings that I attended, people were planning to vote, based on everything else but party or candidate.
Honestly there is a thin line between MP,MLA and Corporator and people fail to recognize it.Even after all the revolutions, people still vote sentimentally and based on prior results not keeping in mind that this person will rule for the next 5 years..
well written
There are two factors to consider while voting in any election -
1. The kind of work the individual candidate can and will do
2. The kind of work the party/coalition represented by the individual will do
Both of the above matter significantly in issues that concern all of us.
For urban areas, I really don't believe an MP has as much of a role to play as the an MLA or the local corporator to address local issues, and that the MP just represents the interests of his constituency at the center. Self-governance is much more effective in urban centres and urban administrations are much more capable relative to panchayats. So, in my opinion, the candidate's capability does not matter as much in urban constituencies (Mumbai-North certainly did not fall apart in the last 5 years), although a good candidate can certainly help.
That leaves the party/coalition to consider and I think this has been analysed in the previous comments. Personally, for me, it was a choice between hindutva and affirmative action. I choose the latter as a lesser evil; it's less insidious than hindutva and its brainwashing (does anyone remember Murli Manohar Joshi and his saffronisation of textbooks?) that can have long term, irreversible effects and one can hope, with the right kind of party at the center, the question of unsavoury (urban) candidates can be addressed through other, more direct channels.
Post a Comment