Nurungukal…

       I have not experienced ever before in my life a lacklustre election campaign as the one now in progress. The simmering summer or the pandemic dynamics or both have taken the toll of an otherwise active  proceedings. Which has no doubt denied the ever hungry Malayalee’s crave for an adipoli  celebration of such events. At least in this part of the state the usual hustle tussle is lacking. May be that ours is not an A+ seat as in the case of some in the capitol. Devoid of an expected mega entertainment at the cost of our already depleted exchequer, we are now eying on the freebies and kits. Unfortunately even our right to access to such baits is being questioned. Thanks to the cost consciousness and constant awareness of election protocol of our ever vigilant fronts in the fray !!.

     Gone are the days of colourful processions and jabbing of fists into the air and the eye catching wall paintings. Even though it has stalled defacing of our surroundings and saved meters and meters of cloth and other sheets many petty artisans have lost their livelihood..

      Since independence the election milieu have undergone many a metamorphosis and refinement. Started with individual ballot box for each candidate with their symbols on them. It obviously reflected our literary standards of those days. Also in certain cases the positioning of the box in the alphabetical order resulted in facing defeat, as the majority preferred to insert their ballot paper in the nearest box.. I know one such case in which he had to accept defeat despite of his popularity and credibility in the constituency. We have attained an envious position among other democracies due to strenuous journey from a primitive stage to today’s enlightened and envious status. Thanks to the meticulous logistics enforced by the conductors and infusion of technology to ensure a precision par excellence like that of a military operation.

        Now the real gainers of the present situation is the visual media. Day in and day out they are exploiting the addiction mania of the mass who have already been influenced by imaginary  situations fed with each episodes of soap operas. There are a given set of television birds who are genetically trained to assimilate concocted political history and blurt at the appropriate instance, in order to outsmart their counterparts from the opposition party.  I used to be dumbfounded on hearing some of their salvos, hurling at each other without any iota of hesitation, knowing pretty well the statements are utterly untenable and far from the truth. To me many of them, except a few, carry only biased and partial views or just pretensions. The biggest danger of such arguments is its influence on an innocent viewer in molding an opinion on such baseless premises.

       Ever since the start of the present imbroglio no tangible or sensible proposal has been chalked out by the contenders on how to implement a sustainable development for augmenting the depleted cash bags and to meet the challenge for providing a number of free services without touching the tax payer’s pocket or loiter around with a begging bowl or demolish all public edifices!!. No meaningful debate is on, how the fronts are going to address the issues viz,

1.  Climate change, managing panchbhoothams

2.  Effective resilience

3.  Sustainable agri production, value addition etc,

4.  Self sufficient villages

5.  Bio diversity conservation

6.  Employment generation

7.  Location specific growth targets

8.  Gender equality

9.  Tribal welfare

10.                      Trance gender status

11.                      Job oriented education reforms

12.                      Sports and games infrastructures in villages

13.                      Uplift of the down trodden to the main stream.

14.                      Cultural nourishment

………and many more to solve. Not to speak of other cosmetic projects like town planning, tourism schemes, IT facilities etc. etc. also how and when and the priorities within our wherewithal are missing.

    The voter or common man is only an onlooker of the stage managed drama in the election arena. He has no participation in the process worth counting except to cast a vote.

      State boasts of effective institutions like three tiered Grama Sabhas and Peoples planning. Yet none has been taken into confidence before the onset of a democratic process, to sensitize the aspirations of the voter. He/she has been denied of any roll to play to mould his or her destiny. In other words what ever that has been enacted in this battle of ballot papers is one sided and lack seriousness or forethought. While we are struggling to do away with human idols, and uphold the spirit of democracy, shift in our paradigms pave an easy path for identifying new ones unknowingly. This is a dangerous trend which we have to shun on first priority. This may be the reason in some pockets a new model of governing is experimented and favoured.

          As things stands now the fulcrum of the choice rests on the induced euphoria by our political stalwarts….I am reminded of the famous satire of our all time entertainer kunchan nambiar …deepasthambam mahaschryam………..!!