ELECTIONS

Young, spirited and raring to go. Bangalore's politics has probably never seen so many young faces. Some hail from political families, some young guns running their own firms, a marketing executive, a financial expert, a film producer, some self-made first timers who have worked their on way, and some are students. 2009 may be indeed the year that sets the trend from national to local. Citizen Matters spoke to a number of ‘gennext' politicians and political campaigners on their heeding the call of politics and their outlook for the upcoming council elections. Your future corporator or even MP may be…

Riding on its recent success in Andhra Pradesh, the Lok Satta Party now plans to expand in other states focusing on urban voters in particular. Among the elections the party is looking ahead to is the contest for the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike council, due in a few weeks. In a recent visit to Bengaluru Jayaprakash Narayan founder and President of the party introduced Lok Satta Party to the city. Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, founder of Lok Satta party. Courtesy: Wikimedia "Lok Satta Party is here to bring a new political culture," said Narayan, widely known as JP, adding that the…

How many of you did not get to vote in the Lok Sabha elections because you couldn’t find your name in the electoral list? While many people scrambled to register their names, a factory found itself in the list with its gender and father's name specified. Pramod Goni a social worker who lives near the factory, says Printflex factory was registered under the electoral list of Constituency No 151 and Polling Part No 239 in Nagappa Reddy and Kushal (NRK) Layout in Mahadevapura. The factory is located on Nagappa Reddy Layout Main Road. The electoral officer listed ‘Printflex’ as the…

The votes are in. The leaders have been chosen. The people of Bengaluru have given their verdict on who is to represent them in Parliament. The lotus blooms in Bengaluru, said one TV channel. UPA sweeps, said another. Singh is King, Sonia is Queen, said one more. History has been created, said yet another. As the UPA is all smiles and ready to form the next government, they have not much reason to smile here in Bengaluru. Bangalore’s voters seem to have thought differently from their compatriots in the rest of the country. In a remarkable twist, for the first…

I voted because I had to vote, though much against my wishes. I live in J.P.Nagar V Phase and I am very sorry to say that there has been no developmental work taken up for this area. Though we do have celebrities living here, there has been no improvement whatsoever for the middle class people living here. Every time I vote because I consider this my fundamental right and would not want anyone to misuse my vote. Who wins is not the matter because we hardly see anyone come back again after the elections are over. I simply do not understand why…

Ours is a family of four adults and two children. We had prepared ID cards for all as per the procedure laid down by the election commission by getting official photos taken at corporation center. We, now, have our Voter ID cards with our photos and other required details. But when I recently checked before the election at the Help Center, we were surprised that our photos are not available in the computer of the Help Center. Again, they took our photos and gave us new ID cards. I really wonder how photos can go missing. Just four days prior…

It was a shame to read that only 42 per cent exercised their vote, inspite of all the propaganda that it is one's duty to vote. In my village of Gedalahalli Kothanur, there was a turn out in huge numbers. We had three centres  to cast our vote and we finished voting within a few minutes. From the news we hear it was the middle class who did not cast their vote. I think they should be penalised in some way. We have a sensible electorate now and by casting our votes, we are making sure we get good governance.⊕

Citizen Matters Magazine - Vol 1 Issue 7 Dear Readers, Covering the elections anywhere in the world gives journalists a good, close look at the candidates and their campaigns. Here are some slices of our analysis from the Bengaluru contests.First, the debates. Unfortunately, most candidates did not make use of the opportunity to respond as lawmakers, let alone lawmakers with vision. Many serious questions did not invite thoughtful, reasoned answers from the candidates of the major parties.For one question on communal violence, Krishna Byregowda, INC candidate for Bangalore South, mouthed away a textbook response: “Hatred is the source of all…

I cast my vote today, for the very first time. For nobody. I decided to use 49-O. If I thought getting an EPIC was an adventure of sorts, the actual voting turned out to be even better. About  two days ago I got to know details about 49-O wherein you can choose to actually cast your vote for noone. You can get some details at http://lawmin.nic.in/ld/subord/cer1.htm and http://www.jaagore.com/issue/readComment.php?id=1538 My polling both was Evershine School in Sarvagnanagar. This comes under the Bangalore Central constituency. I had made up my mind to not vote for anyone. When I told the officers there…

If there is one striking feature to distinguish this election from previous ones, it's the focus on the young voter. From actor Imran Khan to Congress scion Rahul Gandhi, the messages relayed through media adverts and political speeches have all urged India's young voters to stop being apathetic and to come out and “make a difference”. Unfortunately, merely coming out and voting doesn't really indicate that candidates are reflecting your concerns or listening to you. R K Misra, Krishna Byregowda and Prof Rajeev Gowda during the presentation of the youth manifesto at IIMB last Saturday (Pic courtesy: Hemangini Gupta) In…