The temperature of the Indian politics has soared in the
last few months. Here, I will be drawing your attention towards the changes happening
around which you might have missed.
With the emergence of AAP on the national political stage,
soon after the Delhi
assembly elections, we saw the first visible sign of increasing voter maturity.
Citizens of Delhi ,
then decided to rise above the petty issues of caste, creed, religion, etc. and
voted for the promise of development without corruption. The AAP’s
later use of organized chaos may or may not prove costly to them, is a
different issue. But, the most significant contribution they made was to force
the existing political parties to introspect their actions. The parties are now
increasingly willing to accept the new voting patterns. No political party can
any longer take a community for granted as its vote bank.
In such a changed scenario, the arrival of intellectuals in
politics is certainly a welcome sign. The popular faces such as Nandan Nilekani,
V Balakrishnan, Satyapal Singh, Ashutosh, etc. are definitely not the products of
ugly caste politics.
We certainly, can expect these people if elected, to not
hurl their shoes or throw chairs away in the Lok Sabha. The next thing, we can
expect from them is to rise above party politics and raise their voices together
for the nation’s development.
In the previous few years, the people witnessed the
unraveling of scams and corruption of the magnitude unseen before. These things
have further enhanced the voter’s desire to abandon apparently corrupt politicians.
These views were reflected in the opinion polls and hence forced the parties to
move away from controversial political figures. The fourth pillar of democracy
is thus playing a critical role in the largest Indian festival.
The election commission reports about the enrollment of 23 million
new voters, approximately 3% of Indian Eligible Voters. These are the youths
less affected by communalism and brought up in the times of increasing
inter-caste marriages. This segment of voters is comparatively better educated
and more favorably positioned to part away with their caste identities and vote
for common good.
The emerging youth power in politics is now set to disturb
all sorts of caste equations. The election results may bring certain degree of
shock and surprise to parties playing divisive vote bank politics.
Another major change, though not much welcoming is the shift
of focus in campaign from policy ideas to personal reputation. BJP has been
promoting a certain individual as the only issue that matters while Congress
and most of the other major national parties had always have an individual or a
family being supreme in party matters. The idea of collective leadership thus, is
proving not to be working in Indian scenario.
Finally, It may be concluded that the country is ready to
witness an entirely new voting pattern and the politics may become less
dirtier.
