MxMIndia

Tag: Mayawati

  • Ensure you, family and friends are registered in the electoral rolls. To check, visit https://www.nvsp.in

    Is Your Name on the Voters’ List?

     

    By Your Editor

     

    So the general elections have been announced.

     

    We all have our cribs about our politicians. Narendra Modi, Amit Shah. Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi. Mamata. Mayawati. Kejriwal. Shiv Sena. About the inefficiencies in the country: potholes, corruption, traffic, trains, buses, educational system, no jobs. We are fed up of our systems, and many of us believe that things will never improve in our lifetime.

     

    Perhaps this belief is correct. But we can try and make a difference. For starters, elect a candidate and political formation to represent us. And pray the elected reps do something. Make them accountable.

     

    The question is: how many of us will beat the summer heat, the lethargy and the attraction of sleeping those few minutes extra because it’s a holiday? For those in Mumbai, the voting day is April 29, a Monday. Perhap enough reason to get out of the city for a long weekend.

     

    It’s however important for each of us to vote. If there’s no candidate who you think is worthwhile, press the NOTA button. It’s critical to express ourselves and get the right person elected as Member of Parliament.

     

    Please check if you are on the voter’s list.

     

    Visit: https://www.nvsp.in

     

    If you get an error, just click on reload. It will come on.

     

    Then enter your name and search. If  you don’t remember your Assembly constituency, don’t bother. The search facility is pretty powerful.

     

    Also, please check with all those eligible to do the same, if they haven’t already done that. If they haven’t registered, they must. And if they have registered, they should keep checking at the website.

     

    The submissions (for proof) are simple: photograph (passport- or ID card-sized), birth certificate, passport, driving licence. If you don’t want to link your Aadhar Card with this, you can manage without it. The only painful thing is that if the first-time voter is over 21 years of age, then there’s a self-declaration to be filled in, signed and uploaded (click here). Please ensure that the scans of all of the above are jpegs/jpgs, not pdfs.

     

    We’ve done it ourselves for a recently turned potential voter and are hence convinced that it’s simple. You’ll get an sms near-instantly giving you a reference number.

     

    Please do visit the website. Check if your name is on it. As also your family. And then get your friends, colleagues etc to do something.

     

    Also, if you are an employer or a biggie at an organisation, dream up something to incentivise voters. An extra day’s salary may be a bit much, but how about a meal at a good restaurant? Or tie up with a Big Bazaar or Book My Show and get some discounts. Even tie up with the Nykaas of the world asking them to cosmetics at a 50% rate.

     

    We need some of upscale stores to step in too. Foodhall, Nature’s Basket, the five/seven star hotels, an extra discount to Zomato Gold members who have voted.

     

    How about some brands sponsoring hot and healthy/unhealthy breakfast outside the voting booths? Meal boxes.

     

    Can our TV channels position their popular stars at selfie points for people who have voted. Take a selfie with Shankar Mahadevan?

     

    If brands can do major activations at the Kumbh Mela, this is a Maha-Maha-Maha-opportunity for a public connect.

     

    Dream on, folks. Let’s make the 2019 Lok Sabha elections an unforgettable one. And elect a government we want out there.

     

     

  • Ranjona Banerji reviews the content on news television and the morning papers

    Electoral politics or keeping people happy

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The poor BJP must be quaking in its shoes. There it was, happily chugging along on its collision course with the Congress over corruption and the government’s inept handling of the Lokpal Bill. And then, wham! India’s star TV anchors have turned against the party for a little transgression – nothing more the usual games played in electoral politics.

     

    But were Arnab Goswami and Rahul Shivshankar of Times Now and Newsx, to name just two, willing on Wednesday night to accept that election compulsions made strange bedfellows? Of course not – by admitting Babu Singh Kushwaha, recently chucked out of the Bahujan Samaj Party by Mayawati on corruption charges, the BJP had walked into indefensible territory. In television land, at least, where no person is too unlikely to be made into a saint if an anchor desires it and what goes up can also come down.

     

    On Times Now Meenakshi Lekhi screamed in defence of the BJP and though Goswami gave her time enough, he did not accept her explanation that the Congress was more corrupt or that Kushwaha was admitted into the BJP to help with the elections and not because there were corruption charges against him and that the Congress was also to blame for the CBI filing charges against Kushwaha.

     

    On Newsx Dr CP Thakur was far more subtle and distinctly un-hysterical as he provided the cynical explanation for the BJP – this was the way things were done during elections. You looked for the caste and community politicians to push your party’s case forward. Like Goswami, Shivshankar was also unsympathetic.

     

    They both refused to accept that politics was a dirty game, in spite of what everyone else said. The BJP, they said, had sworn to fight corruption. LK Advani, they said, had gone on a rath yatra against corruption. The BJP had supported Anna Hazare and the anti-corruption movement. And now the BJP had taken into its fold a man sacked by Mayawati on corruption charges and they were supposed to accept it as part of electoral politics? Never!

     

    If I were the BJP, which depends a lot on TV to keep its middle class supporters happy, I would be scared. Is winning UP more important that losing the hearts and minds of middle India which watches TV news? I wonder.

     

    **

     

    Newsx and Shivshankar went a step further than Times Now and put Anna Hazare’s committee in the dock as well. Mayank Gandhi tried to explain how Team Anna (which is what it calls itself now) was not looking at individual cases but systemic change, although it condemned the BJP. This was not good enough for Shivshankar and definitely not for Team Anna supporter and former bureaucrat Arun Bhatia who slammed Gandhi for being mealy-mouthed in his condemnation and his explanation.

     

    To make matters worse, on Thursday morning, Headlines Today carried a detailed report on the rifts within Team Anna over the Mumbai fiasco and support to the BJP.

     

    **

     

    One small sliver of hope for the BJP and Team Anna is newspapers are still slightly more balanced. And the only thing that can save them is if the eagle eye of our anchors shifts to India’s remarkable performance on the playing fields of Australia.

     

    Otherwise, hell hath no fury…