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As lakhs of Hyderabadis vote despite the pandemic, the political parties have largely failed and fooled the people through their blistering campaign. Political filibustering relegated real issues to the back seat. Representative character of urban local bodies has been crushed at the altar of competitive politics for capturing power. True to the post-truth age, emotive campaigns rising political temperatures replaced reasoned debate to enable voters to exercise informed choice.
Hyderabad will elect 150 corporators who, in turn, will choose the mayor. But, no voter knows who will be the Hyderabad mayor? Parties demonstrated deafening yet conspicuous silence on the mayoral candidate. Though city will have a women mayor, no women leader was allowed to be at the forefront of any party’s campaign. Irrespective of the verdict, one thing is certain, Hyderabad will have a dummy mayor. The tragedy is the death of dynamic city leadership so critical for vibrant local self-government as envisaged in the 74th amendment to the constitution of India.
Urban Distress and Reforms study quoted by Kota Neelima in her article in The Wire, reveals that when given multiple options, over 67% of voters were concerned with poor roads in the city, over 62% with poor sanitation, almost 51% about poor health, and 34% about poor education in municipal schools.
On the contrary, the lion’s share of campaign time and the heat was occupied by belligerent political talk or emotive issues ranging from Bin Laden, Babar, Kashmir, and Rohingyas to central aid, potential threat to law and order, etc. Manifestos of all parties looked alike, talked about everything, and hurled on people competitive promises. No logical explanation was ever offered on the fiscal viability of these promises. Parties used GHMC as a launchpad either to retain power or to replace someone in power. Thus, the GHMC elections were held hostage to political expediency.
With political parties unable to present radically different political culture, the ultimate blame would be on the recalcitrant urban voter, especially the reticent educated middle class. This is not to defend voters’ apathy. Indeed, the citizen has a fundamental duty to exercise one’s franchise to question the prevailing political paradigm. Elections are not an end in itself in democracy. It is a means to herald good governance. But, civil society has to be vigilant to make electoral democracy accountable. Let’s vote. Let’s question.
By Prof. K Nageshwar
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Tags GHMC Hyderabad GHMC Election
