Im just another helpless first time voter

I know we are having Mumbai issue at our hands which is the top priority for the nation right now. But this is something also very important,electing our leaders. SO here is the post I made on my blog here *knayam.com/2008/11/18/im-just-another-helpless-first-time-voter/

I am really confused.Want some worthy advice from you people. Many otehr will/can benefit from the discussion as well.

mayank'sblog said:
I will get a chance to vote for the first time on 29 Nov, the day Delhi goes to legislative elections. Im so very excited about it as i always wanted to vote. But as much as im excited about my first vote, im am equally clueless about in whose favour I should cast my vote.

There is corruption every where. They are so selfish and greedy that dont give a damn about democratic values anymore ( recent Ashok Argal’s vote-for-money case). They make such baseless acquisitions on another that it is hard to believe that they are from the same country working (thoeretically) for the bettetment of their country and its people.

Well, the whole things boils down to our politicians,our leaders who are,actually our own representatives. We only select them to lead us. So who is at fault here? Why do we elect people who have no will to serve people? People who only want to join politics because they they are just bored of being a criminal(criminal records of our MP’s and MLA’s are a proof) and want a change, people who see politics as an option to make huge chunks of money. Why have we blindfolded ourselves from the reality. Why are we so orthodox that we are incapable of thinking beyond regional,caste and religion lines? what makes the whole scenario even more disastrous that there are educated people too who believe that people like Raj Thackeray are right. many educated people think on the lines of Hindutva as popularised by BJP and its allies like VHP, Bajrang Dal. I was stunned one day to discover (after a long heated discussion) that somewhere down the line even my mother thinks of all muslims as extremists. She says what I think is good on paper but reality is different than just thinking all as just Indians. Why this generalisation?

But what options do you have once you dare,I say dare think beyond these things? Who do you give your vote to? Im one of those who strictly believe casting your vote is a must,as it is better to be a prt of a solution then to whine about a problem. I am a first time voter and will cas my vote for the fisrt time in upcoming Delhi elections. But the problem is whom do i give my vote to? Whome do i want my next leader? Mr. Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who you can find standing all the time in the parliament,irrespective of whether he has anything to say/oppose to? He just stands for the sake of it as he is in opposition. The man has no issues. Apart from that why should i vote a party that believes in caste politics? People who do violence in name of religion. On the other hand is Congress, the oldest national party hailing leaders like Nehru, Indira Gandhi ,which slammed the high Indian democratic values by bribing the MP’s to vote in their favour in the confidence motion by PM on the issue of civil nuclear deal. The party has candidates like Jagdish Tytler who are no better than their counterparts.Also they have been a fail when it comes to containing terror. Point is the both the major national parties are no different from each other. Every one is corrupt.

So effectively you do not have to sweat thinking,”Oh my, I cant decide who is more worthy of my vote because all have done excellent service for the country”, but rather you have the dilemma of choosing who is a lesser evil from among the bunch.Who has lesser criminal records against his name. Who has done atleast something for his region. That is the problem if you really want to make your vote count.

Is it really so hard to find a genuine candidate who is really worthy of your vote in a country of more than 1 billion people? I wish people like respected ex-president Dr. Abdul Kalaam ji come into politics. We really need a change, much like America. We need an Obama for ourselves.

Is elections all about choosing lesser of the two evil and keeping the more evil away from the power? What should you do? Skipping is not a solution but why should I endorse/support people in whose ideology i dont believe in?

help me get ris of the situation and i am sure there are many more (atleast youth) who feel the same way
P.S> its not only about the Delhi elections but also about elections in general(there are general elections coming up next year)

Give BJP a chance if u want to save the nation from terrorists ! Enact POTA ..elect BJP !

M

esumitkumar said:
Give BJP a chance if u want to save the nation from terrorists ! Enact POTA ..elect BJP !

+10000

esumitkumar said:
Give BJP a chance if u want to save the nation from terrorists ! Enact POTA ..elect BJP !

POTA - I too support

^me too

How is POTA going to help curbing terrorism..?

O i get it. If we enact POTA the terrorists will be so afraid, that they will start pissing in their pants, throw away their AK-47s and start sucking their thumbs. Good going

^^lol POTA will become an excuse for other things than what it meant to be.

arre yar Congress ko 10 saal diye..5 BJP ko bhi deke dekho..we need CHANGE !!
warna mere BJP vs Congress thread ko refer kar lo

M

congress ko 10 saal... when?

Delhi main congress ko 10 saal ho chuke hai Mrintech

..

Who is in Mumbai? lol

M

esumitkumar said:
Delhi main congress ko 10 saal ho chuke hai Mrintech ..

i thought in India

amitava82 said:
Who is in Mumbai? lol

vote according to ur common sense and thinking... BUT PLEASE VOTE!! Dont sit in ur home doin nothin. just spend atmost 1 hr on tht day to vote for ur desired candidate... PLEASE VOTE GUYS!

jal_desai said:
vote according to ur common sense and thinking... BUT PLEASE VOTE!! Dont sit in ur home doin nothin. just spend atmost 1 hr on tht day to vote for ur desired candidate... PLEASE VOTE GUYS!

You are the enlightened! and do you know how many people actually have common sense? Like they say, common sense is not so common!

I did give my vote, and i gave my vote to nobody.
There is a provision for that.
You can read about my expirience on my blog here if you want to know more about it if you are interested.
*biotech-geek.com/blog2/2008/11/29/i-voted-i-voted-for-no-one-in-delhi-elections

thewisecrab said:

Well, Delhi is not being attacked; it's Mumbai. esumitkumar said he want change. Why do you want a change in Delhi when the problem is in Mumbai..? Just need a reason to blame congress lol

Never mind, I'm not into politics n I don't care..

they all say 1 vote can make the difference but what if they don't allow us to vote

on 27 there were elections in Indore and many voters like me who had voter Id but no name in list .....so we just had to return without voting . Most of them were whose voter id's wer made this year . had voter Id but no name in the list .

vote nobody

I didnt vote.. I dont care.. All parties suck.. Dont wanna waste my time..

kalpik said:
I dont care..

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

- Martin Niemoller

Today in TOI, I read an article that said "Delhities are taking a cold, hard look at the candidates and assessing their track record on development issues before deciding their choice". But here I see a completely different story. The choice is not the candidate, but the dilemma to vote or not!

karnivore said:
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

- Martin Niemoller

Bravo.

To all those who say they dont care because nobody is worth it.Well,did you read what i posted in my last post? I suggest you read it.
Vote for "I vote nobody"

mediator said:
Today in TOI, I read an article that said "Delhities are taking a cold, hard look at the candidates and assessing their track record on development issues before deciding their choice". But here I see a completely different story. The choice is not the candidate, but the dilemma to vote or not!

If there were right candidates then there is no reason for people to not vote. The dilemma to vote or not(atleast in India), is directly connected to the available choice of candidates. Whether one votes for 'my fav party' or 'your fav party', the end result is the same. People of this country end up with mud on their face, if not blood.

esumitkumar said:
arre yar Congress ko 10 saal diye..5 BJP ko bhi deke dekho..we need CHANGE !!

[

]
kaisa change? jaisa gujarat mein hua in 2002? ya fir waisa change jo orissa mein uss christian nun ke saath hua? desh ke every state mein itne change ka zaroorat nahi hai!!

but your concern is appreciated.

(what change? the kind that came about in gujarat in 2002? or the kind that happened with the christian nun in orissa? we don't need that much change in every state of the country!!)
[/

]

I think since we have tried the congress & co., the bjp & co. and they have succeeded superbly at failing us, so its time to try the communists & co. When you think about it, they also deserve an equal chance to fcuk up this country. Lets see if they can do any better or worse than the failures before them. They may be able to clean up this political mess we are in, without indulging in partiality, religious or any other kind. Unless there is a better choice or someone can come up with something convincing against the commies, I think this time we should vote the communists into power...but then I don't want to be in a chinese colony either.

Im sorry, but i cannot spend 1-2 hours to vote for "noone". I honestly dont care about it. You can say whatever, i just dont care! Ill probably vote when i think any party is worth caring for.

@afonofa: Wanna talk about West Bengal?

if there were no politicians in India.........it would have been more prosperous than USA..

i hate these politicians............

Well i vote, and have done so since i have become eligible (Those were the days when ballots were used). But if someone chooses not to vote, i think i am ok with that too. NOT VOTING is also an opinion and that deserves respect as well.

But having said that, i would also add, that the decision to not vote, is something that should be taken only after a thorough consideration. Now, unless you are not in a position to vote, for whatever reason, or you are way too confused about who to vote, I don't think "waste of time" or "I don't care" are good enough reasons to stay away from voting.

I am pretty sure that one does not spend 24x7 being at his peak productive self. One does waste way more time than one would like to admit. The argument of waste of time is a pathetic excuse for being lazy.

'I don't care" is equally vacuous. We do care, again, more than we would like to admit. Everytime there is a slight inconvenience in our lifestyle, we make a pinata out of these politicians and their policies. But how fair is it for a person, who is indifferent about how we chose to run our society, to suddenly care when his own liberties are at stake. Do u have the RIGHT to be critical of the system, which u, to begin with, never took the RESPONSIBILITY to build ?

The problem of choice is common in all democracy. No single party is perfect and no single party can satisfy every single person. The decision, that is to be made, has to be between, what one thinks is, lesser evil than the rest. Saying that i will vote when that mythical political party-that-can-do-no-evil descends from the sky, is more juvenile than a kid waiting for the tooth-fairy.

Go out and vote. And if u don't, at least have a better excuse than "I don't have time" or "I don't care".

afonofa said:
If there were right candidates then there is no reason for people to not vote. The dilemma to vote or not(atleast in India), is directly connected to the available choice of candidates. Whether one votes for 'my fav party' or 'your fav party', the end result is the same. People of this country end up with mud on their face, if not blood.

There were lot of theories against Modi, and forgetting all over about who actually started the Godhra. People of that state voted for him and its for the next 5 years to decide about his action and what he did. But what I see is that Gujarat is undergoing tremendous development. Th blame game happens all the time in politics. As a result, all kinds of people are carried in its wave. Then, the general people like you and me have a hard time understanding what actually is happening and we end up distancing ourselves from it. A few months back, we used to say police has gotten corrupt, ATS is corrupt and all the rhetorics. And now when a gallant officer like Mr. Karkare is martyred, we are singing praise for him and the ATS. Its like judging them all based on news, rumours, humours, misunderstandings etc ... all mixed!!

Also, if you talk of Nitish (Bihar), people from that state will tell you the tales about how many skools and colleges and development is actually being done now. Someone rightly said, that its a real tragedy that we see less voting from Upper and middle class who are much more aware and educated. Why its tragedy? You may ponder upon yourself!

And so how exactly do you define the "right candidate"?

kalpik said:
Im sorry, but i cannot spend 1-2 hours to vote for "noone". I honestly dont care about it. You can say whatever, i just dont care! Ill probably vote when i think any party is worth caring for.

I know u reside (or used to) in East Delhi, with pincode-110092. I assume you never voted coz if you did, you wud have found that it actually takes less than 10 mintues! All of Delhi is like that => Game Over in 10 mints. If u can spend hours on the net, forums, replying in "chit-chat", then once in a while that too for just 10 mints is comparably negligible!

ah the political blame games begin...

the retards BJP are saying that people dont want the current Congress govt in power. You Fk jackasses what did u do to prevent terrorist strikes in Gujarat, Karnataka and Rajasthan. The Mumbai terrorists took a boat from Porbander in Gujarat. What did Modi do to stop them? And the 2001 parliament attacks who can forget that.
Instead of playing blame games they could atleast help the Congress government so that future attacks can be prevented.

And I thought this attack would some what change the attitude of the political parties. After 9/11 in US both the democrats and republicans got together. But such a thing is impossible in India.

amitava82 said:
Well, Delhi is not being attacked; it's Mumbai. esumitkumar said he want change. Why do you want a change in Delhi when the problem is in Mumbai..? Just need a reason to blame congress lol

Never mind, I'm not into politics n I don't care..

Oh. I see.
So, whom did you'll vote for after all?

karnivore said:
Well i vote, and have done so since i have become eligible (Those were the days when ballots were used). But if someone chooses not to vote, i think i am ok with that too. NOT VOTING is also an opinion and that deserves respect as well.

But having said that, i would also add, that the decision to not vote, is something that should be taken only after a thorough consideration. Now, unless you are not in a position to vote, for whatever reason, or you are way too confused about who to vote, I don't think "waste of time" or "I don't care" are good enough reasons to stay away from voting.

I am pretty sure that one does not spend 24x7 being at his peak productive self. One does waste way more time than one would like to admit. The argument of waste of time is a pathetic excuse for being lazy.

'I don't care" is equally vacuous. We do care, again, more than we would like to admit. Everytime there is a slight inconvenience in our lifestyle, we make a pinata out of these politicians and their policies. But how fair is it for a person, who is indifferent about how we chose to run our society, to suddenly care when his own liberties are at stake. Do u have the RIGHT to be critical of the system, which u, to begin with, never took the RESPONSIBILITY to build ?

The problem of choice is common in all democracy. No single party is perfect and no single party can satisfy every single person. The decision, that is to be made, has to be between, what one thinks is, lesser evil than the rest. Saying that i will vote when that mythical political party-that-can-do-no-evil descends from the sky, is more juvenile than a kid waiting for the tooth-fairy.

Go out and vote. And if u don't, at least have a better excuse than "I don't have time" or "I don't care".

You are taking in the wrong sense.. I meant i dont care in the sense that no party has my confidence. So it doesnt really matter who wins (as far as im concerned at least). If in future some party somehow catches my attention, i would definitely go out and vote! Just going to the booth and playing inky pinky ponky with the voting machine is no use IMO.

(what change? the kind that came about in gujarat in 2002? or the kind that happened with the christian nun in orissa? we don't need that much change in every state of the country!!)

hahaha..arre yar ..ye sab India main CHALTA hai..yehi attitude hai Indians ka ...jo jise pasand hai usey vote karo..nobody is forcing,,aur rahi GUJ ki baat..even muslims vote for Modi...

developement is all we want..meri pasand BJP hee hai ..atleast they are 25 % bettter than Cong..if not 100 %...

so jise chaho vote karo ..NJOY !!

karnivore said:
The problem of choice is common in all democracy. No single party is perfect and no single party can satisfy every single person. The decision, that is to be made, has to be between, what one thinks is, lesser evil than the rest.

With the current bunch of #%$! (out of civilized words to describe them so use whatever comes to your mind) that we have, no matter who we vote for, terrorists(outsiders) still attack. Atleast with the Congress in power we don't have to worry about our own people attacking each other. In that respect I think Congress would be the lesser evil.

But again, all those who are saying they don't/won't vote should still vote. If they are frustrated, then they can simply go to voting booth and opt "not to vote" as per article Article 49-O of Constitution.

source said:
DID YOU know that there is a provision in the Constitution of India, as per the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1969 Act, in Section 49-O that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked, and convey to the presiding election officer that he/she doesn’t want to vote for anyone! Yes, such a feature is available, but obviously these seemingly notorious leaders have never disclosed it. It is called "49-O".

49-O: The voter (or elector) deciding not to vote:

If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.

If you think none of the candidates at the ward / constituency are able enough to lead the community, you can always opt not to vote, but if you will use this right of yours you may start a new things in our electoral process, which will further strengthen our democracy.

It is useful in the following way:

In a ward or constituency, if a candidate wins, say by ’x’ votes, and that particular ward has received "49-O" votes more than x, then that polling will be cancelled and will have to be re-polled.

Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people have already expressed their decision on them. This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way of our whole political system. It is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public.

Source

PS: Please spread this info!

M

^^^^

Very Nice....

Nice indeed. Ill definitely do that the next time

Thanks for the info

Edit: Err.. From the link you gave:

this is not true, in any case the polling is not treated as null and void !The drawback of this rule is that the voter has to disclose his identity and the fact that he has not voted for any one does not remain a secret.Beyond the fact that such a vote can be cast under rule 49 O, there is no rule of repoll on the basis of number of votes polled under such rule. This is only a rumour going on for some time without anyone trying to get it confirmed with any authority. Theoretically, if all the votes but one, ispolled for 'none of the above' under the abovesaid rule and only 1 vote polled for a particular candidate, that candidate shall stand elected. 'None of the above' provision only helps in creating pressure on the political parties to field good candidates. There is of course a demand from various NGO's that the rule should be modified to incorporate the provision of repoll if such votes exceed a particular number. However, no decision has so far been taken by the GOI on that.As explained above the said rule 49-O relates to all Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

Ok, checked wikipedia too: *en.wikipedia.org/wiki/49-O

Its just a stupid rule with no implications whatsoever. So now again, all this amounts to just wasting your time

Yep, thanx for checking out!

So I guess this is what it exactly says,

49-O said:
49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark

EC said:
Here is what the Election Commission has to say on NEGATIVE / NEUTRAL VOTING:

The Commission has received proposals from a very large number of individuals and organizations that there should be a provision enabling a voter to reject all the candidates in the constituency if he does not find them suitable. In the voting using the conventional ballot paper and ballot boxes, an elector can drop the ballot paper without marking his vote against any of the candidates, if he chooses so. However, in the voting using the Electronic Voting Machines, such a facility is not available to the voter. Although, Rule 49 O of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 provides that an elector may refuse to vote after he has been identified and necessary entries made in the Register of Electors and the marked copy of the electoral roll, the secrecy of voting is not protected here inasmuch as the polling officials and the polling agents in the polling station get to know about the decision of such a voter.

The Commission recommends that the law should be amended to specifically provide for negative / neutral voting. For this purpose, Rules 22 and 49B of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 may be suitably amended adding a provision that in the ballot paper and the particulars on the ballot unit, in the column relating to names of candidates, after the entry relating to the last candidate, there shall be a column ìNone of the above, to enable a voter to reject all the candidates, if he chooses so. Such a proposal was earlier made by the Commission in 2001 (vide letter dated 10.12.2001).

(A petition by the People ís Union for Civil Liberties seeking such a provision filed at the time of the recent general elections is pending before the Honíble Supreme Court)

Lets hope this proposal gets cleared!