We are like this only

The nation’s aam janata, preoccupied with expressing and exchanging their views, some in formal circles and the rest in gossip circles, on this’n’that of the Parliamentary polls held from the first half of April to the second half of May this year, may have gone back to their daily chores while political commentators, both seasoned and minnows, are busy as ever writing articles exposing the underbelly of the stuff the elected members are made of, thanks to the hospitality of the country’s print media, facilitating aam janata to indulge in more exchange of all that are crossing their minds. The spend on the event, both the valuable time that would have been otherwise spared for welfare activities benefiting the country as well as its masses themselves and funds drawn from the treasury as well as from sullied pockets of the vote-seekers, seems to have been described as necessary evil, which the auditors of public expenditure may have to call it infructuous, given the none-to-worthwhile outcome of the polls. The Democracy’s constitutionally provided procedures for administering the country have been complied with and one can only introspect in retrospect.

Over the decades since 1951 election of Members to the nation’s first Parliament, the Election Commission of India has pursued many thoughtful measures, ostensibly to trim the rough edges of the once-in-five-years event, among which a) Model code of conduct and b) Option to the voter not favouring any of the contestants stand out. More measures attributed to the independent authority are in the boiling pot as it were.

The Members of the country’s Parliament during the first decade of post-Independent era are known to have adhered to the principle of service to the country, enjoying the trust of the then citizens happily casting their votes totally free from the many annoying features marking the conduct of people at large. We are presently in an era of self-appointed leaders in quest of votes to win in polls as a business with no holds barred. Even as more than one in ten of the elected Members in the present Parliament are reportedly facing charges of committing crimes of serious nature, the Election Commission’s 37 recommendations including those focussed on disqualification of candidates on various counts are said to be pending since the 2014 polls.

While legal formalities and bureaucratic slow pace of acting for a makeover in the country’s election to be flawless may not see a desirable end, it is up to the land’s people not to be partners of vote-seekers immersed in business throwing ethics to the winds. That amounts to asking for the moon as it were, as we may hear their voice: We are like this only.