What if the 30 th of April,2009 was not a holiday and yet a polling day where by you could still go to your office or work at home yet SMS or cast a vote online in a bracket of 11 am to 12 am.
If you are a true blue Mumbaikar (I am not referring to Mumbai Indians) you will always know where the traffic is heading,the city roads should be packed and hustling with bustling cars,the yellow and black taxis,the ever so easily maneuverable little chicken auto rickshaws.
But come 30 th April 2009,the date for the going out there and casting your vote,there was a lack of buzz around the city.With so many stars/politicos urging the maximum city to go out there and cast a vote,yet it seemed many a family headed to Lonavla, Matheran, Mahabaleshwar to beat the heat and celebrate an extended vacation starting April 30,the voting day,May 1 Maharashtra day and the World Labour day which fell on Thursday and Friday and thus summing it up with a beautiful long weekend on Saturday and Sunday.End result Mumbai gets a polling percentage between 45 to 46 percent lowest in the last 4 general elections.
Well you may have issues like Booth Capturing,Rigging and thus you have to ensure every person goes to the polling booth and then finding his name on the registration list shows his identity proof and then casts his vote.If you look at the polling percentage across sectors and socio-economic classes the number of educated and higher middle class has always been low across the country.
With free food,pick up and drop during days of campaigning and also Rs 100 per day paid per person as the amount given to have a nice time with the rally ,most political parties bestow such lavish amenities for the lower rung of our population who fall easy prey to such allurements.
Now maybe many educated individuals are not motivated enough to go out there and vote because they don’t understand the adage that a single drop of water adds up to fill a lake.But then just by making it a public holiday and urging people to vote is not enough. There has to be more ease and convenience which has to be created for a person to vote.
Lets face it in a new World where networking and social interaction Is through Facebook ,Orkut and Myspace,where discussions and chats are online,where Mr Advani can urge the young Indians to cast their votes online,why not urge the entire population to elect their leaders online.
In this age of Dial a Pizza,Mc Delivery,Customer Care and Call Centres that serve credit card statements for Americans and the Europeans,we have the technology prowess to set up an online ballot system.If any one in the world the Indian IT Industry is adept and proficient at developing an online polling system atleast for Urban India.
Well rigging,impersonification and security concerns would crop up in your mind,but then by paying 100 Rs the politicos are rigging it anyways. Why not have a dual voting system.Why not have some electoral representatives going from home to home in a particular day in a particular time asking the members of the family to go online to www.indianelections2009.org ,showing passport/ration card/PAN card to those member and them overseeing the vote.
I had political parties coming up to my house to urge everyone to vote ,so why not have the members of election commission coming over to your house so that you can vote online.If you don’t like the idea of someone coming over to your home,let the voting lines be open online on a particular site and every person can go online and casts a vote by registering his unique id/pan card or his passport number.We can have digital signatures.My cynics of this(which will be more than my supporters) I am targeting say around only 30 percent of the entire Indian Population but this is the educated,urbane,literate class that refrains from polling year on year.
I am sure the VDelivery aka McDelivery will increase the Polling percentage from 45 to atleast 55,which would be a considerable increase.Many Non Resident Indians or Indians who are out of the country or state can also cast their vote electronically from wherever they are.
I know many of my friends who are in the USA backing political parties in India and who are even more interested in Indian Politics more than me for several reasons,patriotism and H1-B may be the highest on their priority list.Why not give them a chance to cast their all important vote too.
India apart from being the worlds largest democracy is also the worlds fastest growing Telecom market with close to 10-11 million subscribers being added every month.We have crossed around 420 million by April 2009 and teledensity touching 37 percent.Airtel is the 8 th Biggest Telecom operator in the world and is all set to touch 100 million subscribers in the second week of May 2009.This teledensity would be close to 70 percent by 2013 by rough estimates.Imagine the penetration.
Why not give these 37 percent of the Indian population a chance to send free SMS which is preceded by a unique passport or Pan Number as an alternative to casting a vote online or going to the polling booth.If all the telcos,Airtel,Vodafone can bear a social cost of a free SMS to a central government registry that collects these votes why not consider this.You could have the voting system asking you to identify yourself by answering some confidential questions.
My ideas may be too optimistic ,they may also be far fetched, the issue of voter independence, of voter secularism, of voter solidarity may be affected, but if convenience and the urge to vote due to lack of interest or confidence is a hindrance in any which way atleast the system in place will get you some 20 percent extra votes.
I am sure you will have the Indian youth between the age group of 18-30 taking hugely to voting by Mobile and the Internet and you may well see 30 th April not being declared a holiday at all.People would rather go to their work and vote there itself.I would see Mumbai registering atleast 66.66 percent of votes whereby atleast 2/3 of your city is electing a Party that needs to get a 2/3 majority to form a government.
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