We all cherish democracy and
democratic processes in our life- be it in the matters of the state or in
matters of the organizations where we work. And we all believe that we will be
happy to live in a democratic environment. And at the heart of the democratic
processes is the voting system. We choose or elect our leaders by exercising
our franchise at definite intervals. We enable or assumed to enable a set of
chosen people to be our representatives
for , say five years in India, and rule us by being part of the machinery called government. And , they
will rule us for five years uninterrupted(unless some specific grave issues
arise),if the political party gets a mandate through the democratic process of
majority. Sincerely, we expect that they will do things which will make our
lives better or at least will not do things which will make our lives worse.
Before the election processes,
the political parties and the candidates
make lots of promises through what they refer to as election manifesto or
otherwise individually. With just the idea of winning the election process, they promise to bring Ramarajya or a
Utopia in the state or the country as
the case may be.
And once the majority party
starts ruling us, very often the promises are forgotten. The moment they a
party gets majority to rule and assume
power, power struggle within the party starts. Every heavy weight in the party,
nurtures positions of power and a number of heavyweights may be left out after
completing the portfolio allocation for ministers. Now, these heavy weights outside the inner
circle, need to be some how satisfied or taken care of; or else they will
create problems for the party and the government from within the party. So the
party creates special cabinet positions for such heavy weights: the positions
may take different forms Chairman of
Administrative Reforms Committee, State’s Representative in New Delhi etc etc as has been happening in the state of Kerala. These special posts need to be given
offices and office staff to operate. It results in substantial expenditure for
the exchequer. Poor tax payers of the state bear the burden of all such “political
accommodations”. All these whims and fancies of political leadership happen
when the state is not financially self sufficient and the government do not have funds to pay
salaries to the employees and pensions to the retired employees of certain
public undertakings engaged in essential services like public transport.
Can the voters do anything to
curtail or curb such actions by the political party in power whenever they are
dissatisfied or feel cheated? No way. The voters have to wait patiently for
five long years and they are likely
to forget even a criminal act that
happened five years back and will vote either the old group of people or a new
set of people without raising any questions about what happened in the past.
A democratic government is
supposed to be ‘by the people, of the people and for the people’. Does any of
the governments justify this canon of democracy? Or can we confidently say so?
