Poll-itics 2003

Perhaps it was the bipartisan nature of the four biggies in Mandate 2003 that lent them a particularly lacerative touch. Mizoram aside, the...

Perhaps it was the bipartisan nature of the four biggies in Mandate 2003 that lent them a particularly lacerative touch. Mizoram aside, the election campaigns for the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi assemblies were almost straight contests between the BJP and the Congress played out in the shadow of General Election 2004. The high pitch of the campaign then quite matched the high stakes involved. What sharpened the edge was the distinctly interesting personalities in the fray. The Raja and the Sanyasin in Madhya Pradesh, the Drought-master and the Rajkumari in Rajasthan, the Chacha and the Chachi in Delhi, and of course Chhattisgarh8217;s terrible twins, Jogi and Judeo.

Three distinct trends were discernible this time. First, that development is no longer an issue that concerns economists and social scientists alone. Call it the maturing of the Indian Voter but the faceless, nameless masses of yore seem to be increasingly coalescing into individuals conscious of their rights to a better quality of life. It is not the demand for bijli, sadak, pani that is new, but the pro-active articulation of it. It now looks like the age when politicians made their promises and promptly forgot them once they were ensconced in their seats may soon well and truly come to an end. And not just in literate Mizoram and Delhi but in the so-called BIMARU states of MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. These elections also saw a great deal of the whistle-blower in action. The Election Commission made its presence felt almost throughout the campaign period, right from the point when it took the NDA government to task for an ad series extolling its achievements, to threatening the Congress with disqualification for its leaders using state aircraft for election purposes, to fighting dogged battles over the presence of bureaucrats perceived as friendly to the administration. The third trend was the continuing metamorphosis of the psephologist into a virtual embodiment of fate itself. In both Delhi and MP, the verdicts were pronounced long before that crucial button had been pressed.

So as you go to exercise your vote today, spare a thought for all those politicians who will be swept away by the power you exercise. Spare a thought, also, for all those who will soon be swept in and who would need to be held fast to the promises they have made. Because in a functioning democracy, among all the losers and winners of poll battles, the decisive winner should always be the voter.