Saturday, December 1, 2012

not my vote, Shweta

Were I living not in NCR but in Maninagar, I would not vote for Shweta Bhatt.

I am no fan of Narendra Modi nor do I think that the BJP is the nation's saviour .

I have no particular antipathy for the Congress, it is as good or bad as the other political parties. 

I am not a male chauvinist in disguise and do not think that the home and hearth are where women belong, not politics.

While prior experience is necessary for most corporate jobs, civil servants who run the country's 600 districts have no prior experience so one can waive that requirement for elected representatives as well, although it would certainly be my preferred option to see in Parliament/Legislative Assemblies people who have some experience in running organisations, be they corporates or NGOs. 

It would help if our elected representatives were articulate. While they do not necessarily have to be powerful orators, and the best orator may mean only half of what he says, or nothing at all, its my perhaps erroneous belief that clarity of thought is reflected in clarity of speech. However, it is not for reason of lack of oratorical skills that I will desist from voting from Shweta Bhatt. 

Does she subscribe to the Congress manifesto? Has she even read it? Does she have a vision for the nation, other than routing Narendra Modi? Is she simply a pawn being played by the Congress which knows that no Congress candidate, be it a Gandhi or a Bollywood superstar or a sports icon, can defeat Modi? None of these matter to me, for we'd be hard put to find candidates who contest elections on a party ticket having read the manifesto and are in agreement with its vision.

The reason why I will not vote for Shweta Bhatt is that her candidature smacks of complete lack of integrity. Why has Sanjeev Bhatt fielded his wife as a candidate? If he has courage of conviction, he should resign from government service and enter the political fray. Instead, his wife, whose name we had not heard till yesterday, has stepped forward as a proxy candidate. That she has agreed to contest elections as a proxy for her husband places a question mark over her integrity as well. Is this the kind of politics that Sanjeev Bhatt wishes to promote, where the alleged authoritarianism of Modi is attempted to be toppled by a mere mouthpiece while the de facto candidate remains in the background? It is not enough that one be seen as a person who does not demand or accept bribes of the pecuniary kind. Integrity is a much larger concept ---- any contradiction whatsoever between word and deed lays one open to the charge of lack of integrity that Sanjeev Bhatt makes against Narendra Modi and is himself guilty of as is his wife. You do not get my vote, Shweta Bhatt.

2 comments:

  1. Yep--clearly written and goes to the heart of the issue! Women should stop being used as pawns, first of all and yes, Sanjeev Bhatt should have had the integrity to stand as himself!

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  2. The election campaign gave Shweta Bhatt 2 weeks of limelight. Probably She or Sanjeev Bhatt did not expect more than that. And Sanjeev Bhatt is no Rahul Sharma, the media should stop introducing him as 'the Cop who took on Narendra Modi.'

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