Comments on: Voting Blues in Gurgaon

By: jyoti

jyoti — Wed, 20 May 2009 09:06:26 +0000

Yes. I’d have voted for Congress to support their work on infrastructure development in Delhi-Gurgaon. I find their role grossly inadequate in Gurgaon and even in Delhi there are anomalies that can’t be forgiven. Still, my impression is that Congress has a higher number of educated, secular and forward looking politicians in it than other parties. More importantly, with the pressure to organise the NCR before the CW 2010 games and a clear majority, the govt will have fewer excuses to give for not taking development initiatives forward.

By: Meena

Meena — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:30:42 +0000

Out of curiosity, did the candidate you would have voted for, win?

By: jyoti

jyoti — Sun, 10 May 2009 09:56:00 +0000

The episode is sad not so much for our not exercising our ballot but for seeing the murkiness of our democracy yet another time. And, to think of its effect on the next generation. Kabir can’t wait to be 18 to cast his vote and hopes for a mid-term election and that too after July so he qualifies for voting. Now he also worries that despite his coming of age, he won’t be allowed to vote because of such admin issues.

Encouraging to know of your experience esp vis-a-vis Rule 49-O. What do we attribute this difference in our country’s treatment of its masses to? Should I rejoice not being born in Bihar or lament landing up in Gurgaon?

By: meena

meena — Sun, 10 May 2009 08:06:47 +0000

I’m really sorry you guys couldn’t vote, the whole episode is quite sad. We were a lot luckier, had not only a very smooth vote, we were treated with great respect, and taken through the booth really speedily. For a small constituency like ours, they had arranged many booths in the same premises. When we inquired about 49-O, they actually explained the procedure to us and had the forms ready for it ! An architect friend of mine was very keen on voting for “no one”. Eventually i think he did vote for someone. Oh yes, all this was when we don’t have Election Cards issued to us yet. Maybe that’s the problem!

By: jyoti

jyoti — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:05:15 +0000

This time around the main dailies had published detailed information on assets and achievements of candidates, and that itself had felt like a step forward from the previous years. On a search, I find similar details on http://myneta.info/gurgaon. However, after our unsuccessful trip to the polling booth, our attempts to find an election officer through the Net or otherwise, to take cognisance of our experience had been useless. A liaison officer caught on the phone said that he couldn’t do anything. That we should complain in writing. My point is that we’re grappling with an unrelenting system that will have to be forced to bring in transparency. It could be by connecting the polling booths over the country to the voter database and facilitating voting from any part of the country or by ensuring that only educated, ethical and clean individuals qualified to be candidates or increasing the frequency of elections to prevent complacency in politicians. How difficult is to issue a unique ID to every citizen and keep it valid for various registrations? I’d thought our Election Cards were just that but having them yesterday didn’t help. Unless the CEC gets real teeth and run by unbiased individuals, half-baked measures will continue to dominate our lives.

By: Sunil

Sunil — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:44:19 +0000

I think its quite unfortunate that we are unable to vote because of being away from our home locations.

The idea mooted about the unique id is something I considered too. We are moving to smart cards for various national I-cards. It might even be worth it to have them synchronized.

Was wondering about the complexity of the task though. Taking the case of the middle class, if the person is able to secure telephone bills on a post-paid, the databases could be matched with the national database for addresses.

I am confident we could develop similar schemes to improve voter turn out.

Another problem I have with the voting business is the lack of information we have about candidates. Maybe it is time for having nationalized televised debates. How about a Hyde park like situation where candidates are put on the stand?

Sunil

By: jyoti

jyoti — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:37:58 +0000

I’m in complete agreement with the proposition made on strat.in to allow participation by all Indians whichever city of the country they may be in, by landing up at any polling booth, presenting their unique ID number and a finger to make their mark on the party selection. It’s an absolute horror that we should have to be at the mercy of the local administration or goons to exercise our fundamental right. The process itself has to be set right by the CEC to warrant a higher participation by the citizens.

And yes, Arun, exchanging our views on best practices is the absolute minimum we could do to push for a change.

By: Arun

Arun — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:09:10 +0000

Hi, I voted this year though my wife could not becuase her center was far away and the booth closed by the time we reached there. The good news is that you care as much as so many other Indians, we can try harder, I am sure things will change, if we keep trying.

By: Elections need Technology Revolution « Strat . In

Elections need Technology Revolution « Strat . In — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:39:21 +0000

[...] and still it was considered good because at other places it was much lower. If this is not enough read this post on Jyoti’s blog where inspite of having a Voter ID card they were unable to vote. To me the situation seems quite [...]

By: jyoti

jyoti — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:47:24 +0000

Good that you managed your visit even if choosing one candidate over another may have been a game of inkee, pinkee, ponky!