Sunday, April 23, 2006

To the hustings...

Election time has arrived again in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Its highly unlikely that the CPM will be replaced in Bengal, mainly due to the new found corporate ratification that Buddha babu has received. In Chennai of course, it could be a close one, though one feels Amma might prevail again. It has been unfortunate that I haven't kept up with the political scenario in Chennai after I left the place long ago and moved to Kolkata...but here's a surprise. An email from a friend in Chennai was a revelation of sorts. The Lok Paritran party in Chennai is contesting the assembly polls. Set up by IIT ians, this is truly a party with a difference. Most of the candidates contesting seem to be well educated and seem to have a proven track record of public service. This is not propaganda for them or anything (when people come to power all the good intentions seem to take a back seat) and when you cast your vote make sure you do your due diligence on the candidates, but atleast now you might be saved from thinking, 'oh who do I vote for, they are all crooks!'. Take a look at the profiles of some of their candidates.

Mylapore - Santhanagopal Vasdev (28), M.A Economics from New York University

Chepauk - P. Elanthirumaran (38), Project Manager/Software Consultant

Thousand Lights - Ishrayel Maheswar (32), MBA, M.Phil

Egmore - Prashant Sharma (48), Marketing Professional

T. Nagar - Arvind Tiruvaiyar (32) - Marketing/Social Worker

Annanagar - Rajamani (56), A senior consulting engineer, worked abroad for 25 years

Saidapet - Hariharan (28), Software Engineer

Park Town - Rabindara Ganesh (61), Social worker

Atleast now the picture is more representative. With the rise of the middle class, it would be nice to have some candidates with whom this huge section of people can identify with. Its also heartening to see the educated, middle class taking the step to join politics and trying their bit to effect change for the better. Regardless of how they perform at the hustings, one has to hand it them for atleast trying.

Cheers!
Abhishek.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i agree with arko...once these fellows come to power all the speeches made etc. vanish up in smoke and we're back where we started..complaining about our politicians!

Abhishek Chatterjee said...

arko and non - i hear you guys. but i'd rather see this happening than not. and true about the pm and fm though, theres coalition politics for u!

Gaurav said...

It's not the first time in the history of Independent India that a handful of 'young turks' with a mission to reform the political scene have come together. In the '70s under the aegis of legendary JP, young George Fernandes, Chandrashekhar, et al had successfully resisted Indira's hegemony. But when these very politicians were given a chance to lead the nation, they failed miserably. Now, I'm not being pessimistic or forming opinions about the new political outfit. I only wish that honest and competent citizens lead India to glory, which is its due. Amen!

Abhishek Chatterjee said...

gaurav - your concerns are valid. just shows or reinforces the extent to which most us have been influenced by the negatives of politics. we look at most things in the field with a bit of scepticism...