What do you vote for?

This post is for all the readers across the world. What do you vote for in your elections?

Do you vote for essential services and development projects? Do you vote for honesty and integrity? Do you vote for the educational qualifications and the development work experience of your candidate? Do you ever read the manifesto of the party/candidate for which you vote?

Why am I asking this? Mid term polls in India were missed by a whisker lately. All this hullabaloo was over the US nuclear deal. As the drama stands, the deal is at least on the back burner. Avoiding the polls is more important than the agreement.

Yet, no one, and no one, not even the great media of this country, has gone to the Third Front, the Communists, to ask what their plan is for India’s nuclear program. I would like that answer very much. No one has asked the Congress exactly when the agreement becomes operational and when we start to reap the “benefits”.

The Indian public has been fed statements like this agreement will facilitate our peaceful nuclear program , or that India’s sovereignty is being compromised by the agreement. Yet, the draft/text of the agreement has not been released for public consumption. It is, of course, assumed that there aren’t enough educated people in India who can read the text and analyse it. India, you see, is still a country of snake charmers that can be galvanized into riots at the mere mention of the word “religion”.

When we vote in talent shows, we vote for the candidate from our region, or of our mother tongue, etc… whatever happened to the word “talent” in a talent show?

My guess is that things are not too different anywhere across the world.

So, in an election, what do you vote for?