Corruption is the major issue for the upcoming LS elections, but it should not surprise the countrymen that political parties are just not talking about it. Instead, the national and regional political parties are busy aligning and re-aligning, shuffling and re-shuffling their stands! Purpose: How to increase the bargaining power so that in post-poll market, they will be able to raise the bar. Raise the bar for ideals, and principles! No, raise the bar for extracting maximum for the power-sharing.

The three fronts are emerging: i) BJP and its allies making NDA, ii) UPA now representing mainly Congress as all the allies have deserted it, and iii) Third Front: a conglomerate of various parties who do not believe in pre-poll alliance and are not ready to even guess until elections are over because they will weigh the possibilites after the results are out. Expect these self-serving parties to do the task of nation-building!

My fellow countrymen, leave your notions of party ideologies, shake the boxes of your affiliations! These are parasites who are sucking our blood, draining our (tax payers’) money and just busy politicking! Not to disparage the honest and sincere political leaders, I must say that unless the whole vision of what politics is all about, our democracy will remain in peril. We need elected leaders who commit to nation building by focusing on education, health, better public and civic administration, national security and integrity, social security for the all (particularly underprivileges masses), economic security, etc. We do not elected leaders who have come to understand that politics is all about indulging in populistic measures and making false promises!

The only solution for the short term:

1. Come out and vote on the day of voting!

2. Vote for candidates based upon the track-record, performance and profile. Do not be swayed by caste and party affiliations.

3. Destroy Regional Parties: Vote for candidates who can provide clean leadership. Throw these small regional parties out of the window as they are going to pollute the post-poll environment by extracting their flesh. These regional parties should not have any stake on the national issues! They were created to fulfill local aspirations and at national level, they will at the best create instability by producing a hung parliament!

Until political reforms are brought in so that the menace of cross over (dal badal) , unholy post-poll alliance is checked and pol parties are disciplined, these short term measures will at least give some relief to stabilize our democracy.