Influences that will decide your decision As the days near to voting date, voters are more confused and undecided. The constant propaganda from the parties makes you disillusioned. More and more the strategy is of personal attacks, denigration , name calling ,racking up dead horses with no holes barred means or ethics and civility, gloating over past performance and grandiose promises., Your gut feeling is that every time your precious vote has not delivered the promises and you know very well that it will not be different this time either .You may have stuck to the principles of good governance, but the contestants have abandoned it themselves long before. The price rise, corruption though affecting you, you have resigned to the inevitable. Your allegiance, membership is taken for granted, while politicians of yore are changing parties with impunity for personal reinstatement .You are stuck with secularism as against communalism, blowing up past incidents of which both National parties are guilty. The secularism card is to appease the minorities only at the time of elections, Are you moved with the personal touch or rubbing shoulders with the prospective candidate by showering personal attention and prominence? Are you influenced by possible change at the centre as the alternative for all the ills facing the Nation like a magic wand? Are you swept by the tide or wave sweeping the Nation crying for change?. Do the local factors like airport, casinos, MOI, mining, special status, parivartan dominate your reasoning? These are empty slogans, which could not be put into operation when the parties were in power. What about silent currents of friends, neighbours, who seem to have anchored their vote for better outcome? The temptations to be influenced by incentives to purchase your vote will seal your decision? Are you frustrated by the fact that all candidates after the election give elaborate, convincing reasons for their in ability to fulfil their promises? You are not fooled by the sacred vote to be cast to preserve the Democracy, which in any way has been enlarged and stretched to mean something else, You are being brain washed that a single vote can make a difference, but to the winning candidate, There is a war in your little brain with ifs and buts and that you will vote setting aside all the principles and judgements you have cultivated. In the end, as everyone else is happy satisfied just to cast the vote and be relieved of mental dissatisfaction will also drown you??
In the end like suicide, NOTA is the option that will give personal satisfaction that your right and precious vote is not wasted, that you are still exercising still your democratic right with freedom to choose. You may still preserve your peace of mind, irrespective of the outcome .When the results are declared like in the past you are always on the winning or losing side. No candidate or party want to consult the voters before they finalise the manifesto, assuming that you will adopt their collective wisdom The level of literacy, poverty in the country dominates the outcome of elections and hence all schemes based on caste, religion, reservations succeed in dividing the voters. Nelson Lopes Chinchinim