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What is important for the voters of India? Do they carry away by propaganda?

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In a democratic nation, the biggest power held by a civilian is the power of vote. Every vote conglomerates to form a new regime or topple an old one. Every citizen above 18 years of age has the right to vote (barring some cases) and holds the power to form a government. In this sphere, there are political parties which are always trying to woo the people to their sides. In every election, there are national parties, state parties, non-recognized parties and independent candidates.

Every candidate has its own method to lure the voters. Most of the times it has been seen that voters get carried away by factors such as caste, creed, religion, sect, personal gains and in the process other factors like development, security, safety, corruption, employment recedes to the background. Voters are of many categories in India, for some, the initially mentioned factors weigh over the latter ones and for some the opposite. Every individual vote as per his/her priority to the factors.

Morally, it can be said that while voting, issues affecting the entire locality should be given preference over personal points. But, in reality what works at the end is propaganda. Though not everytime, but it has been proven that most of the times, propaganda weighs over the issues. Candidates are so witty that they try to grasp the vein of voters and make sure that voters think only what the candidate wants them to think and votes accordingly. It has been seen that the same party, even the same candidate follows different propaganda methods at two different places. It depends on the demography of population at that place. As a voter, it is important that such a candidate is selected who can work for the upliftment of that region, can improve law and order, instil the sense of security, does not only work for the party or him/herself but for the entire constituency without any prejudices. However, during the campaigning period propaganda begins to develop slowly and it begins to dominate the voters. Propaganda in itself can be of two types- positive and negative. The difference between the two types is that positive propaganda has facts and truth imbibed in it and negative propaganda is without any base of truthfulness or facts. If a candidate decides to fight on the agenda of poor conditions of road in his/her constituency and brings before the people the true facts of budget allocation, poor execution, corruption at various levels and own plan of working in the problem if gets selected, then it is termed as positive propaganda.

However, here the role of electors is very important as showing the dreams is very easy, hence, electors should weigh the candidate’s points on the balance of reality that whether his/her promises are practically possible or not. Another candidate decides to fight in the name of caste, where s/he after seeing the caste analysis of constituency decides to take votes in the name of a particular caste only which is in majority there. In the process, s/he also goes down to the limits of demeaning other caste groups. This is what can be called negative propaganda because here the candidate is not showing any vision to the voters. S/he is just trying to fight in the name of narrow politics. The aim of the candidate here seems only to win by hook or by crook, no matter, if s/he ends up creating social disturbances in the society. Thus, ultimately, in a democracy what is most important is the thinking power and analysing ability of the voters. Whether they could filter the positive or negative elements from politics or not matters.

Until and unless a person rises from the depths of clannism to humanism, s/he can’t take right decisions and the evil of bad propaganda keeps on extending its sway everywhere. Voters need to use their wits and have a positive futuristic approach towards the society before entering polling booth. Only that can cleanse our politics and society and we begin to move in the path of progress.

-Jayant Joshi

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