Wednesday 15 October 2014

The Missing 'Josh' in the Assembly Elections in Haryana

Today is the voting day for the State Assembly elections in the state of Haryana and Maharashtra. I went and did vote to decide the next lot of the Members of the Legislative Assembly. 

Deserted voting Room

I was surprised that the whole process for me was over in five minutes. Personally it was a pleasant surprise but for the democracy not so. Pleasant for me as the process was over very quickly without any hassles and not required to stand in the queue to wait for my turn. But it is not good for the democracy as there were very few persons who have come for the voting in these assembly elections.

A CNN IBM TV 18 team interviewing some of the voters

This is in sharp contrast to the elections for the parliament held in April this year when I could see lot many persons form all strata’s of society coming to vote even early in the morning. This is despite the fact that most of the educational institutions as well as government and private offices (barring a few) are closed and even Delhi government has also announced that staff residing in Haryana can take a day off for voting.

No voter to canvass?

Is the reason lack of enthusiasm in the local state politics? Or is it that voters are very skeptical of all the candidates in the assembly elections? I also did notice that the door-to-door campaigning was completely missing during these elections. Not a single candidate or its representative came to my area for seeking votes. If the campaigning is not there how the electorate decides who is a better candidate over the other?

The counting of votes for both the states is to be held on 19th of this month. The result would be available by that afternoon as the voting in India is done on the electronic voting machines (EVM’s).

If you have a vote in either of these two states then there is still time left to go and vote as the voting can be done till 6 PM.

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I used my finger. Did you?

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