I got a scrap on orkut.com from Meenakshi Natarajan www.meenakshimandsaur.com , Congress LokSabha candidate from Mandsaur Constituency. I was happily surprised with her use of orkut and internet to reach out to voters in a constituency which is agriculture driven, rural district. In spite of low internet penetration, she chose to reach out to prospective voters. Either she wants to not leave any stone unturned in her campaign or there is immense potential of internet marketing even in semi urban and rural India. It’s unique experiment as your candidates and representatives are getting closer to voters not just in cities such Delhi and Mumbai but also in low profile, grossly ignored areas of the country.

I visited the site to know more about her and her agenda. Here are some pros and cons of her candidature.

Pros
· She is just 36 years old. Her youth with be beneficial as she is contesting against BJP candidate Laxmi narayan pandey, who is septuagenarian (76 yrs old).
· Her offensive is based on poor performance of her opponent who has not done justice to his job in spite being in the office for 8 times.
· Excellent academic record.
· Excellent political career.
· She has consciously moved to Mandsaur while her opponent is on weak grounds as his permanent residence is still not in Mandsaur even after representing the area for 8 times.
· There is clear anger among urban voters over lackadaisical attitude of Mr. Pandey over negligence and non pragmatism. Issues of Railway connectivity, Roads, Water crisis, Electricity, Industrialization have been neglected by current MP that will sway voters in favor of Ms Natarajan.
Cons
· She hails from Ratlam, a neighboring district. Since her opponent is also an outsider, her outsider status is not of greater significance.
· She is new for Mandsaur and it would be extremely difficult to recall a new comer’s name at the time of voting. Her South Indian heritage might be a disadvantage as Malwis (people of the region) might not associate a “Natrajan” to be one among them.
· She is just riding on incumbency factor and has not come out with any concrete action plan for solving problems of water crisis and industrialization. Sadly this has been the case for all Indian politicians who never have any action plan to solve issues. They just have political promises.

Overall, I feel Congress has done a good job in fielding Ms Natarjan. Her youth, energy and qualification will prove advantageous in removing BJP bottleneck from progress of Mandsaur, Neemuch, and Jaora.

-Anshuman