And Then One Voted

What I had to go through to get my voter ID card will take up two and a half blog posts, but after having cast my vote now, I feel it was worth all the effort.

Here's to Indian democracy -







Wrong finger?




















Thank you very much, DNA. Huh.




















Old Airport Road, Bangalore at 6:45 am.
































The Polling Station


















List of candidates and alternate ID proofs.


















The polling booth at 7 am. There were problems with the EVM and polling began only by 7:15.

























Heartening to see the queues getting longer!







Do share your voting experiences!

Bhay Jo - BJP's Counter To Jai Ho

Saw this on the bus at the Chennai Airport. Quite nice, I think. What do you think?





If the BJP wins, a BJP led alliance comes to power, their media cell and their ad agencies - Frank Simoes-Tag and Utopia deserve huge credit for the performance. They have made sure that they reach voters through all possible media and I must say, they are doing a smart job at it. Whether these efforts will pay off, only time and the EVMs will tell.

About The English Media And The Elections

How much influence does the English media - news channels, newspapers, weekly and fortnightly magazines all put together have on the electorate?

• My sense is, not much not at all. It is perhaps the same set of people who follow all of these and the audience is not mutually exclusive. At the end of the day, (the day never ends though, for these 24 hour news channels!), I don't think it really matters to the electorate how loud, obscene, shrill, vicious the English media is, while the media would like to believe otherwise. And what about the urban areas where they seem to have some influence? Two things, one - the urban constituencies aren't necessarily urban in terms of their voter profile. While there may be pockets of prosperity, there are large areas which are underdeveloped and people will still continue to vote based on factors they have been for years - caste, alcohol, free television sets, money, promise of better food, clothing and shelter. Second - I am yet to find enough proof to be convinced that the urban audience, your young, upwardly mobile, techie/executive type is honestly bothered about anything other than where the next party is, no not the political party. Alright, I am exaggerating, but then it's sad to see little or no involvement from the urban audience in trying, first to understand the functions, actions and people in our governance processes and then trying to change what they do not like by being a part of the system. Can't blame them either, if what they rely on for information and opinion, does not do a good job in the first place. And what about initiatives like these and people like these? Good for feeling good, eyeballs and higher TRP ratings, but what after the elections? It's back to their business and the media will find something else to write, show and scream about. I pray I am proved wrong and something helpful comes out of it.

I am totally dismayed at the collective disdain and lack of acceptance tolerance and respect the news channels and some of their prominent anchors have for those from the BJP. While that doesn't take me any closer to the BJP, one gets a feeling as if all of them have taken a decision to ridicule, rile and object to anything that those representing the BJP say on the talkshows. Sudheendra Kulkarni, Swapan Dasgupta, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Arun Jaitley are probably some of the most articulate, intelligent and coherent people one has come across on Indian television in recent times. What scores for me is how gracefully they carry themselves in the middle of the mud and noise floating around. Compare that with how Manish Tewari, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Jayanthi Natarajan and Ashwini Kumar carry themselves and you get the feeling that their agenda is not to convey to the audience what their points of view are, but to rubbish what their opponents say, with their trademark wry smiles and arrogant smirks. Also, the BJP team appears to be well-prepared and seems to have been briefed properly, for they seem to speak in one voice. The Congress team, on the other hand, pun unintended, seem to have not gotten their act together yet.


PS. Have to write about my experiences in applying for the voter ID card and now waiting to get it. It has been a lot of effort, mostly due to lack of proper information and clear communication from the authorities, but I do hope to get the card soon.

Why The Third Front Won't Fly? And A Few More Thoughts

Simply because the English media doesn't have enough people who work for them to vote for the constituents of the Third Front. Even if each and everyone remotely connected to the English media were to vote for those from the Third Front, that will still not be enough for the Third Front to get enough seats to justify the newsreel and the newsprint being wasted used for their coverage.

Except for the English media, I don't think anyone, even those who belong to the Third Front, seriously believes that the Third Front will be a formidable force in determining the power structure in the 15th Lok Sabha. With BJD, BSP and AIADMK not having openly come out in full support of such a front, all the bargaining that the Third Front could do will be on the strength of the TDP-TRS combine in Andhra Pradesh. Without the full support of the BJD, BSP and AIADMK and a common policy document to hold the constituents together, which hopefully they truly believe in and follow, the Third Front will continue to remain a motley bunch of have-beens and trying-to-bes whose idea is bought only by their heads and by the English media.

But then, these are elections in India, and like they say, anything can happen! Whatever happens, it will be a delight for those following the Indian politics closely.

Trivia: The polling station in Banej village in the Una segment of Junagadh Lok Sabha constituency, Gujarat has the unique claim to being the only polling station in the country that caters to only one elector - Guru Shree Bharatdasji Bapu, a priest of a Shiva temple in the middle of the Gir Forest.

PS. Sagarikaji, whatever you may say about Naveen Patnaik in this article is fair, but please take it that Rahul Gandhi will not be able to make any difference to the electoral fortunes of his party. Why am I saying this? Because I have a feeling of what is coming next from you and I expect a lot of baba-propping by you. Hope you will disappoint me and talk/write about something that really matters.

PPS. Note to self - Write about experiences from registering for the Voter ID. Fairly smooth and simple process.

PPPS. Can anyone from the English media please come up with a five point four point definition of what exactly is Hindutva Brand Of Politics? I am particularly interested in knowing this from the fresh-out-college-of-masscom college-I-know-it-all-thrusting-mikes-and-questions types. They are better off covering parties and telling us what are people wearing (or not wearing), and not taking political journalism to even lower depths.

PPPS. Note to self - Make a list of all the terms connected to Indian Politics that I hate/begun to hate. Words which are needlessly concocted, words used without the meaning being understood, words used because that brings in more advertising money or that brings in those few thousand eyeballs more and a few hundred clicks more. Example - Hindutva Brand Of Politics, Moditva, Secularism (Huh!) and such.

PPPPS. For all that this man is, the least one expects from a particpant in a TV debate is respect and consideration for people on the other side. I somehow find him to be very self-absorbed, rigid and more often than not, arrogant and that spoils the entire spirit of a debate. But Sir, you are not to be blamed, you are only building your brand and speaking for those who stand to gain from your seemingly articulate and forceful pushing of the agenda. It is the media, who for those few extra TRP ratings, bring you in front of the camera and make a mess of the debate. Here's something more about the man. I know most of the questions in the Q&A columns are cooked by either a very bored or a very excited junior correspondent or a copy editor, but at least the responses should seem to be appropriate. If it sells, so be it. Sad, but it is that way.

But What Will TV Do?

Borrowing the title from K's post on his very informative and insightful blog. The Press Council of India has come out with a set of guidelines for election coverage and K asks - What about the TV channels? Considering the (unfair?) fare they have been dishing out, I am already dreading the prospect of having to follow them for the election news.

What I find interesting from the guidelines is the note on the pre-poll and the exit poll surveys. [My emphasis in bold]

The Press Council, therefore, requests the Press to abide by the following guideline in respect of the exit polls:
Guideline: No newspaper shall publish exit-poll surveys, however, genuine they may be, till the last of the polls is over.

Again, what about the TV channels? And are we sure that these guidelines will be adhered to? Let's wait and well, watch. I don't quite relish the prospect of watching them though.