‘None of the above’

I happened to hear from my friend the other day of a readers’ opinion poll in one of the English dailies. Readers were asked whether th...

I happened to hear from my friend the other day of a readers’ opinion poll in one of the English dailies. Readers were asked whether the category ‘None of the above’ should be included in EVMs in the forthcoming general elections. “Surprisingly,” he said, “70 per cent of readers strongly felt the need to include such a category.”

If this is true, what an alarming trend it is! It indicates the level of trust people place in the group of political candidates from whom they have to choose a representative. The electorate has evidently come to the realisation that any individual they vote for will, inevitably, become a part of a viciously corrupt system. This is why today’s electorate feels the need to express its rejection of all candidates!

This is a totally disappointing development for a democracy that claims to be the world’s largest. What has gone wrong? Our democracy — or for that matter any democracy in the world — thrives on a political party system. And if our democracy fails to deliver, it is mainly because our political parties are full of flaws.

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A political party is supposed to be an organised association of people who believe in a common ideology and who seek to obtain control of the government. Such a party is expected to nominate the best possible candidates to compete in elections that are in themselves intensely competitive in character.

A quick look at the present day political parties and the candidates they field will reveal to us the real reason as to why the people of India hesitate to go to the polling booth. Today, many parties exist without any particular ideology. They don’t represent anyone, they don’t stand for anything. Those seeking to become the people’s representatives are in the game only for their selfish interests. If they don’t get a ticket in one party, they are quite happy to move on to another.

The attainment of power has become the only motto for these political parties and their candidates. Every party has surrendered and compromised on their values and ideologies in order to gain power. Many a time, parties have opted for venial and criminal candidates because they are perceived to be more likely to win.

It is this devaluation of the political process — thanks to the utterly irresponsible fashion in which political parties have functioned — that has resulted in the common people having lost their faith in elections.