It is a tough election for voters. A mundane multi-cornered contest has mingled with a mind-numbing multi-media slug-fest. A light vein is needed to take the ongoing de’mock’ratic tamasha seriously. Small wonder comedians and caricatures are invoked more than Kamaraj, Anna or MGR. But vote, we must!
Leaders look listless; cadres confused; candidates irrelevant; politicos and parties, pests from the past; issues as ancient as Tamil; promises painfully predictable; track-records terrible; EC not finding it easy; State in a shambles; And people? Wanting to WhatsApp their votes and move on to movies and malls for momentary moksha! But vote, we must!
Behold the key leaders! Long lost looters are locking horns with latest looters; these devils’ alternatives claim to be clean despite being bed-fellows of the ‘corrupt’ earlier! All ailing supremos are hailed as saviours of the State when they can’t even sort their own steps and speech. But worse, these fossils in the fray are actually fronts with some frightful characrers lurking in the shadows to take over. But vote, we must!
Candidates with criminal records are at a record high, such shady elements shielded and sponsored by equally culpable high commands. Campaigns are charades; the cadre and crowds seamlessly move across landscapes and party-scapes. Same people are paid and pushed around to listen tirelessly to the same leaders and cheer their tireless tirades everywhere. Commerce and hard cash ensures perfect mobility of even ‘loyal’ workers. The appearance of the same old, indignant, screaming, common-folk woman in the video ads of both DMK and AIADMK is proof, or rather a spoof, of the prime political parties’ pathetic sales-pitch. But vote, we must!
Poll-issues and promises? There are many, so many that you can’t feel any! There’s everything and so there’s nothing. In a circle, the starting point and end point are same. Fifty years of cyclical intra-dravidian poll-politics is a zero-sum game, … and shame. The state of this well-endowed State is zilch. Manifestos and methods have changed their stripes, not their substance. Katchatheevu and SL Tamils are staples of several decades. Anna launched freebies in 1967 with rice which have since risen manifold with the times and tech to cover the entire organic and inorganic spectrum from cattle to laptops to TVs to 3G/4G. Forget 2G. K even gave us a free new year while J ‘magnanimously’ forced free flash floods on us. But vote, we must!
Or take alcohol. Cheers. Oh, sorry, I don’t mean that literally. Point is, a Tasmac drunkard has been steadier than the Prohibition policy over the years and regimes. When liquor flows, people drown; But if liquor dries, the treasury will drown. That avenue is the single major revenue or is it ‘vice’-versa? Whatever, really, it is not the people but the welfare State, run and ruined by hypocritic politicos, that is most addicted to the toxic liquid. K injected the poison first; Good Samaritan and anti-drink champion MGR made barons out of bootleggers; J, with her Midas touch, irrigated TN with it to the grassroots. We were promised Cauvery; we know what flowed instead. And these are the ones talking of abstinence now! But vote, we must!
The above apart, every festering issue, from power to rivers to roads to the reeling economy, is a creation of Dravidians’ rule. Problems have prevailed as have parallel promises, a perfected, perennial process by which these politicos and parties have prospered. But we can blindly believe the DMK and AIADMK on one aspect: The charges they trade against each other are true to every detail! And despite all that stale rhetoric, they remain the sole runners. But vote, we must.
Yes, we know that whoever wins, we lose. Yes, we are sick of them and their visible sickness. We are tired of their long and lasting presence. We are helpless about by their lingering, larger-than -life images. We are aghast at their looming egos. We are put off by their pompous politics and paranoid personas. Indeed, we are aware of the pitiable paradox of any change leading only to status quo. But vote we must!
But why should we? After all, there is ignorance, impatience, disinterest and disillusionment. There is cynicism and pessimism. So why? For the sake of hope and for habit. Having waited this long, regular voters should not give up now. Fresh voters must get a feel of this democratic karma. The fading sun will set sometime soon and brighter and better stars will arise. Leaves will wither and new ones will sprout. A saner and more sober herald will replace the drunken drawl of the dumb drum. And when such a dawn arrives, there must be eager and energetic voters around first. So, just a few more years, please!
So, vote we must, this time! So that our index finger does not lose the touch, at least!
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