In a meeting Sharad Pawar said that BJP will be the single
largest Party this election but NDA will not get the necessary majority. What
he has stated in public is what political observers have been saying for at
least six months now. What this means is that BJP will get the largest number
of seats that any single party will get. But Indian politics is no longer that
simple. For the past couple of decades there has never been a single Party rule
– it is always a coalition government. Which means that one Party with the
largest number of votes hammers out deals with promises of power, subsidies,
sops and money with other significant Parties to make the 272 seats and form
government.
This model has two important aspects:
- Voter’s choice
- Horse Trading
Let’s analyse these two aspects now with the delta of the
stated principle of democracy: A government of the people, by the people, for the
people.
Firstly (though not related to Pawar’s statement) let’s see “of
the people”: Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, Akhilesh Yadav,
Chandrababu Naidu, Jagan, Kanimozhi, Uddhav Thakrey, Vijayraje Scindia, Rabri
Devi, Omar Abdullah...politics in India has mostly become a family “business”.
India’s nod to the concept of democracy is that there are
General Elections held every five years. The only real participation that the
citizenry of the country have is in those few minutes or seconds that they cast
their vote. After those brief moments, the populace has no meaning, no voice.
The votes are gathered, counted and declared. Then the power
players start colluding with each other. The collusions are based only on
convenience and corruption – not on vision and ideology. It is not a wish to
serve or for development that makes the strange political bedfellows – it is a
hunger and chase of power.
Is this a government for the people? If the living
conditions of the country are anything to go by, it is not.
While the nitty-gritties of the deals are being worked out,
the Indian Voter is a speechless bystander with no say in their own lives.
If indeed, as Pawar (and the political observers) says, BJP
will be the largest Party but NDA will not form the government – it means that
the voter’s choice will be marginalised and rejected at the altar of power
games. If BJP will be the largest Party, it means that most of the country
wants them to form the government. However, if NDA doesn’t form the government
and UPA does, it means that the country has no say in the outcome.
Is this a government by the people? Clearly not.
India currently has no claim to be a democracy if all three
parts of the single driving principle of the concept of democracy aren’t
followed.
In my next piece I will discuss solutions to the malaise of power
politics that loots the people and drains the country.
Sujata Garimella