Though I got to the legal age for voting way back in the year 2001, I haven’t voted even once in my whole life. So on voting days I was not at the polling stations but was sleeping, as the “Jaagore” campaign would say. The reason for not voting was simple; there was never a worthy candidate to vote for in my constituency, Thiruvananthapuram. But things have changed this time around and I am going to vote for the first time as one of the candidates in my constituency is Shashi Tharoor, the former Under Secretary General of the United Nations.
Politics in India has become such a quagmire, that young people have started to think about it as a thing that they should have no business with. Lack of integrity and honesty of the politicians and their propensity to indulge in dirty games for votes and money have made young people averse to politics. It means that there is a dire need to bring some integrity and honesty back to Indian politics. People with higher education, professional outlook and an ability to think beyond vote bank politics and money should enter politics. This is the need of the hour and to cater to this very need, it seems that Indian National Congress has fielded Shashi Tharoor as its candidate in Thiruvananthapuram parliament constituency. The former Under Secretary General of the United Nations, Shashi Tharoor is a famous writer and a diplomat par excellence. His candid views and writings about various national and international issues have been a matter of serious discussions in various forums. His supreme intelligence, candid expression of ideas and ability to see things in an independent perspective have been something that has made him a writer of international distinction.
Personal allegations are the most important weapon for all political parties, particularly during elections. There is no dearth of such personal allegations against Shashi Tharoor either. The LDF campaigners are calling him a spy of the United States and Israel. And for that they have discovered some old article of Mr. Tharoor, where he was lauding the intelligence gathering system of Israel and was telling that there are a lot of lessons that India could learn from how Israel is using their system against Palestine. The dumb fools in his opposition either don’t understand the fact from the language he has used in his article (because it was exceptional English which most political leaders don’t have the ability to understand) or are feigning as if they haven’t understood it. Any sane person, with some common sense and minimum ability to comprehend the English language would understand that he was not praising the Israelis for their attack on Palestine, but was praising the competence of their intelligence system and was commenting how we Indians can adopt their intelligence gathering techniques. But the loathsome opposition front, known for their historic intolerance, has decided to attack him by raising trivial and preposterous posers.
As far as an young voter like me is concerned, the candidature of Shashi Tharoor is a welcome break from the often seen and ridiculed old model of politicians who thrive on their sinister ability to manoeuvre thoughts of people by making false claims and insidious comments. The prospect of Shashi Tharoor becoming the MP from Thiruvananthapuram gives us a great hope. A hope that if elected, he will change the way MPs have been functioning all these years, where by they owed allegiance only to their respective political parties and not the people that they represent. A hope that there will be someone in the Indian Parliament, representing us and representing the spirit of change and development. A hope that there will be someone in the Parliament voicing our concerns in English and in Hindi, as Mr. Tharoor has been saying all through his election campaign. A hope that there will be an MP who is well-educated, who has got good diplomatic skills, who has an ability to see things in an independent and constructive way, who has got no political baggage and who has got an enviable level of intelligence and knowledge would stand up tall and speak up for all our development needs.
We are duty bound to utilise our right to vote every time we are presented with that opportunity. But the candidates that we usually get were not people who would enhance our hopes and aspirations. This has certainly made some people, including me, to think that it is not worth our while to go and vote. But by voting Shashi Tharoor in to the Indian parliament we have got a golden opportunity to make immense by electing a worthy candidate who would not be guided by intolerance and petty political considerations. Therefore I am going to vote this time; for the first time.
(Picture courtesy: Shashi Tharoor's official election website www.shashitharoor.in)
Politics in India has become such a quagmire, that young people have started to think about it as a thing that they should have no business with. Lack of integrity and honesty of the politicians and their propensity to indulge in dirty games for votes and money have made young people averse to politics. It means that there is a dire need to bring some integrity and honesty back to Indian politics. People with higher education, professional outlook and an ability to think beyond vote bank politics and money should enter politics. This is the need of the hour and to cater to this very need, it seems that Indian National Congress has fielded Shashi Tharoor as its candidate in Thiruvananthapuram parliament constituency. The former Under Secretary General of the United Nations, Shashi Tharoor is a famous writer and a diplomat par excellence. His candid views and writings about various national and international issues have been a matter of serious discussions in various forums. His supreme intelligence, candid expression of ideas and ability to see things in an independent perspective have been something that has made him a writer of international distinction.
Personal allegations are the most important weapon for all political parties, particularly during elections. There is no dearth of such personal allegations against Shashi Tharoor either. The LDF campaigners are calling him a spy of the United States and Israel. And for that they have discovered some old article of Mr. Tharoor, where he was lauding the intelligence gathering system of Israel and was telling that there are a lot of lessons that India could learn from how Israel is using their system against Palestine. The dumb fools in his opposition either don’t understand the fact from the language he has used in his article (because it was exceptional English which most political leaders don’t have the ability to understand) or are feigning as if they haven’t understood it. Any sane person, with some common sense and minimum ability to comprehend the English language would understand that he was not praising the Israelis for their attack on Palestine, but was praising the competence of their intelligence system and was commenting how we Indians can adopt their intelligence gathering techniques. But the loathsome opposition front, known for their historic intolerance, has decided to attack him by raising trivial and preposterous posers.
As far as an young voter like me is concerned, the candidature of Shashi Tharoor is a welcome break from the often seen and ridiculed old model of politicians who thrive on their sinister ability to manoeuvre thoughts of people by making false claims and insidious comments. The prospect of Shashi Tharoor becoming the MP from Thiruvananthapuram gives us a great hope. A hope that if elected, he will change the way MPs have been functioning all these years, where by they owed allegiance only to their respective political parties and not the people that they represent. A hope that there will be someone in the Indian Parliament, representing us and representing the spirit of change and development. A hope that there will be someone in the Parliament voicing our concerns in English and in Hindi, as Mr. Tharoor has been saying all through his election campaign. A hope that there will be an MP who is well-educated, who has got good diplomatic skills, who has an ability to see things in an independent and constructive way, who has got no political baggage and who has got an enviable level of intelligence and knowledge would stand up tall and speak up for all our development needs.
We are duty bound to utilise our right to vote every time we are presented with that opportunity. But the candidates that we usually get were not people who would enhance our hopes and aspirations. This has certainly made some people, including me, to think that it is not worth our while to go and vote. But by voting Shashi Tharoor in to the Indian parliament we have got a golden opportunity to make immense by electing a worthy candidate who would not be guided by intolerance and petty political considerations. Therefore I am going to vote this time; for the first time.
(Picture courtesy: Shashi Tharoor's official election website www.shashitharoor.in)
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