You Could Be….

…a politician! I’m assuming that a municipal corporator would also qualify to be called a politician. I was delighted to read about Lok Paritran and VoteMumbai recently. With the elections to the Bombay Municipal Corporation virtually just around the corner (end-January) and the attendant hullabaloo, these are truly welcome initiatives and at the ‘right place at the right time.’

The Lok Paritran web-site seems to be a little dated, and VoteMumbai is better viewed in IE, it seems to break-up in Firefox. You may want to check out the solutions that the latter has to propose.

I’ve also been noticing an increasing number of articles becoming visible about IIT-ians and such other educationally-enlightened folks giving voice about ‘making a difference’ in the country. Would it be premature to start talking of the smell of possibilities and change? The answer, as always, seems to be a yes-and-no. And what becomes imperative in such cloudy or murky situations is that all us ordinary-men need to come out, out of our closets, out of our nests, out of our comfortable virtual-worlds - and cast our vote! I hope that there’s information made available about the persons standing for elections, the performance of the incumbents, the situation of their wards/constituencies….. lets make an informed decision.

I continue to wish that there was provision for a no-vote; this becomes very necessary given the opportunistic nature of coalition politics these days, throwing up miserable and dastardly options. I remember being stale-mated by such a situation a few years ago, effectively leaving me with no choice whatsoever. A no-vote would have been so much more elegant, and the number of no-votes could even be used to determine the need for a re-poll.

Perhaps the number of independent candidates will achieve the same effect - of providing alternatives to the established and deeply-fossilized establishment. Lets watch and see. And once again, make sure you vote!