With the race to the General elections in India heating up, there are so many things that people say.. for or against parties, candidates, policies et al... the truth remains taht a huuuuuge number of our policymakers are corrupt, inefficient, and worse, criminals..

saw a nice post by IHM on how people should vote for those candidates who have clean records..
http://lifeofanindianhomemaker.blogspot.com/2009/02/this-can-become-turning-point.html

Plus the lok sabha speaker himself raised concern about the fact taht many MPs do not participate in the House proceedings...
http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?654730

AND Told lok sabha members that they didn NOT deserve to sit in the parliament...
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=Cricket&id=f939ab3b-a24f-40c6-8f8b-bf7c5872c5fc&&Headline=Speaker+raps+%e2%80%98unruly%e2%80%99+MPs%2c+adjourns+House

then a senior editor in the Indian Express put together an editorial which essentially says that parliamentarians aren't doing any work and wasting time in useless arguments...
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/they-the-people/428072/

makes me wonder who teh heck to vote FOR?????? personally i think Dr. manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherji and P. Chidambaram are few of the rare honest guys in Indian politics... unfortunately they come with the baggage of dynastic politics with a little prince in teh wings, and kinhgs of corruption like Lalu and Amar Singh in tow.... the alternatives are a money guzzling princess who shoots people if they dont contribute to her coffers while claiming to represent some people she has lost all contact with, and an ageing man who thinks he can revive hindutva in all its terrible glory...

and this is just the top layer... as you go down to the grassroots layers, u'll find representatives of gangs, land mafia, musclemen, spoiled businessmen, people with casese of looting, murder, rape, assault et al... the few good men and women seem to suffocate somewhere under teh weight of the corrupt system... so what is a voter to do???? vote for the few rare good guys in the hope that they will not get cowed down eventually... or.. excercise the right to a negative vote,...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/49-O

which unfortunately is NOT a secret ballot, potentially opning doors to harassment by the political goons who will happily identify and threaten those who cast these negative votes...
because unfortunately, if the voter does NOT go to vote.. the candidate who recieves the maximum number of votes from the miniscule lot who are coerced into voting for them... wins.. and tehn tey can easily say that they represent their voters...

which is why teh MPs won't agree to abolish rule 49 O and continue to argue against adding a none of teh above option to the EVMs and ballot papers.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/EDITORIAL-COMMENT--None-Of-The-Above/rssarticleshow/4183965.cms

elections are in May...
and there dont seem to be any decent candidates with clean records around....

Heaven help this country..