Be an Informed Voter !!

Today was a high action packed drama day in politics. By now, half the nation is aware of Jarnail Singh who threw shoe at home minister P Chidambaram. I do not want to comment on his personal views and reason for throwing shoe at home minister but it is quite embarrassing for the entire country. My personal views are that the means of expressing the anger was wrong but the time has come when we need to come ahead and vote corrupted politicians out of the system be it Jagdish Tytler or any XYZ. This event had pretty good impact on congress and they have decided to reconsider their decision to issue ticket to Jagdish Tytler who is in controversy for the 1984 riots.

I feel ashamed in writing that we vote people like Dharmendra, Govinda and many more who are politicians just for the sake of it. Attendance of both these candidates is 22% and 12% respectively in parliament. On what basis are we voting these candidates and many more whose names could not be produced as the list is endless. I would love to restrain from voting than to vote for candidate who is my representative and is not interested in the affairs of parliament. The irony is that most of the voters in India are not aware of the credentials of the candidate for whom they are voting. Google has done a wonderful job by creating a tool which gives minute detail about each and every consistency along with comparison between 2004 and 2008 on various parameters like - Literacy Ratio, Poverty Ratio, Crime, Sex Ratio, and Household Ratio. To top it all, it also gives the name of last MP along with his education Qualification, Asset, liability and criminal record. The website is a must visit for every voter. I urge every voter to do pay visit to this website and do vote only after knowing the candidate and status of his/ her consistency in 2008 vis a vis year 2004.

Let me tell you that Varun Gandhi, Mamta Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi (posed as future PM of India) have all faked their qualification while filing for elections. It is really shameful act for India that young politicians who should be example for generations to come are indulging in such cheap activities. Making fake promises, distributing currency notes for votes, buying MPs and now faking degrees - there is no end to it.

I reiterate that there is no end to cheap politics and the only way to end this is vote the least corrupted among all and in order to make it happen we can not afford to be an uninformed voter. Some of the websites which may be helpful in educating voters are listed below. I urge each one of us to spare few minutes to know the person and his / her efforts before voting for him.

Civil Society: Voter Registration

Jaago Re (Marketing Campaign by Tata Tea)
Bangalore Voter ID
Vote India

Civil Society: Transparency

Public Interest Foundation
Smart Vote (Bangalore)
Mumbai Votes
Future CM (AP)

Civil Society: Ideation/ Collective Action

Change India
India Banao
Praja

Happy informed Voting!!