SCHEDULE FOR STATE ELECTIONS 2009 (ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS) ARUNANCHAL PRADESH, HARYANA AND MAHARASHTRA

Counting shall be done on Thursday, the 22^nd October 2009

Number of Assembly Constituencies going to polls

India has spoken, and how! It has chosen development over the noisy, short-sighted and sometimes downright pathetic rants of some selfish fools. These politicians will never realize what the people want.

This time around, young first time voters were quite large in number. The youth have a completely different mindset and perspective than what most political parties are used to. We have grown up watching our leaders throw chairs and chappals at each other and listened to those election promises over and over to the point of being clichéd. We are tired of divisive, religion, caste based and hate politics. Personally, all I would want is to study and do my job well, go home and spend some quality time with family and friends, go on a fun holiday, do something constructive…not waste my life fighting, swearing at or degrading other people over some petty issues.

UPA won by a thumping margin and although the full credit should go to the humble Dr. Manmohan Singh and the young Rahul Gandhi, the Congress should also thank it’s opponents. The first remark, ’125 saal ki budhiya’ showed the people that the Congress still had the most experience in the field. The second about ‘dynasty politics’, a reference to Milind Deora, Priya Dutt, Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia among others, put the spotlight on the new, educated breed of politicians that the Congress had.

Heartiest congratulations to the UPA for pulling off this win. And although they have achieved a majority, I hope the Congress rules responsibly and takes clear headed decisions. Alongwith economic reforms, they should look to uplift the population starting with the most economically challenged and downtrodden sections of our society and seek a positive change in their lifestyle. Here’s hoping for a true ‘India Shining’ 

Dear Citizen of India,

Here is something you should be proud of.

35 states and union territories voted together across 543 constituencies where about 1055 political parties plus probably twice as more the independent candidates were battling out across 8,28,804 polling booths where about 13,68,403 EVMs were secured by 61 lakh civil personnels so that 71,40,00,000 (71 crore and 40 lakh) registered voters could come and make a choice of their candidates, it just cannot get anything bigger than this.

Every constituency was divided into an average of 1526 polling booths

Close to 11 thousand civil personnel were deployed in every constituency to take care of about 13 lakh voters in your constituency

VoteIndia.in applauds the effort of the Election Commision of India in conducting this mammoth exercise flawlessly.

We sincerely hope that you were a part of this phenomenon of “Indian Parliamentary Elections 2009”.

Jai Hind.

- Team VoteIndia.in

(Source : BBC)

As we know that there are about 14 crore TV sets accross India. If we assume that a family consists of 5 members then, 60 crore people get access to TV, but other 52crore do not. Also in urban India (about 40 crore) fix toward wrong & illogical channels that made TV an idiot box.

Lok Sabha Channel is a neutral channel. It neither supports UPA,NDA,independents, nor it tries to politically motivate. It shows all the events (like Question hour, Zero hour, & all others). We all should watch this sessions, since MPs are in power because of us. We vote them and give them power, so we should know what they are doing in Parliament. This should be done in rural areas too.

Some might say that MPs made a ‘Sabji ki Mandi‘ in the Parliament. I feel that all MPs are not the hippocrites(like Omar Abdullah, Sachin Pilot. etc who want to serve). So, rural people too are responsible to give them power. Why should not they know about the sessions in the Parliament?

-Shubhrojyoti

We have completed the dissemination of affidavit information and all emails were sent prior to the date of phase elections. This is another small step towards our goal of getting good leaders elected and of good governance. The entire team’s been putting in efforts for over a month now and it feels really good to have achieved this. The support that we’ve got from people is very encouraging, keep it coming!

Dear brothers and sisters,

It is really unfortunate to see the photo of children carrying electronic voting
machines on the eve of third phase of the Lok Sabha elections in the Bhagalpur
constituency in Bihar on Wednesday( Photo by Ranjeet Kumar) on page no 13 of
today’s The Hindu news paper.

It is painful to notice that police personal escort them.( I assume that the
people in khaki are police Personal).

Are we, the responsible citizens of India, not to be blamed for such child labour
employed by government departments. Do we really have an idea of abolishing
Child labour? Will our politicians ( whom we are going to elect and who promises
to give education for all and eradication of Child labour ) look in into this
issue.

I do not know how many thousands of children are employed in such duties all
over India.

Hope there will be a dawn in the life of those unfortunate children.

I wish those who employed the children for carrying EVM must be punished.

Will this humble and sincere request reach the officials, departments and ministries
concerned?

Let us hope for a Child Labour free India soon.

Jai Hind.

Valoothoor Vama A.Mohamed Ali
A responsible and patriotic Citizen,
Chennai

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

How to cast your vote:

• The green light on the Electronic Voting machine will be on at the time
of voting.

• Press the blue button in front of the name of the candidate for whom
you want to vote.

• On pressing the blue button a red light will appear and you will hear
“BEEP” sound. This “BEEP” sound will indicate that your
vote has been registered successfully.

To register yourself as a voter please click here

Documents to be carried

Voters are required to carry along with them Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC)
while going to vote.

If you don’t have EPIC, you should carry with you any of the following alternative
documents for establishing your identity. Please take note that you will not
be allowed to exercise your vote if you don’t have EPIC or any of the following
documents with you even if your name is included in the Photo Electoral Rolls.

List of the alternative document is as below:

* Passport.

* Driving License.

* Income Tax Identity (PAN) cards.

* Service Identity cards issued to its employees by State / Central Government,
Public sector Undertakings, Local Bodies or Public Limited companies with photograph.

* Passbooks issued by Public Banks / Post Office and Kisan passbooks with photograph
(Accounts opened upto 28.2.09)

* Property documents such as Pattas, Registered Deeds etc. with photograph.

* ST/SC/OBC Certificates issued by competent authority with photograph (issued
upto 28.02.09).

* Pension Documents such as ex-servicemen’s Pension book / Pension Payment Order,
Ex-servicemen’s Widow / Dependent certificates, Old age Pension order, widow
pension order with photograph (issued upto 28.02.09).

* Freedom fighter Identity card with photograph.

* Arms licenses (issued upto 28.02.09).

* Certificate of physical Handicap with photograph issued by competent authority
(issued upto 28.02.09)

* Job cards issued under NREGA with photograph (issued upto 28.02.09)

* Health insurance scheme smart cards with photograph (Ministry of Labour’s
scheme, issued upto 28.02.09)

* Ration card (issued upto 28.02.09)

** If any of the above documents is available with the head of the family that
can be used for identifying the other members of the family provided all members
come together and are identified by the head of the family.

source Election commission

Todays politicans are divided in three groups:

1. Son- politician

2. Gunda- Politician

3. Other than two above.

Definition of election also changed with the group of politician.

1. Election is a process which fulfills the aspirations of son-politicians who can do nothing other than continuing with fathers business.

2. Election is a process by which gundas hold the arms of those who once handcapped them. It is an immunity from public out raze.

3. Election is a process by which we choose the beauty of uganda & Tanjania.

While voting, one must remember which objective he or she is going to serve.

Bypolls in India should be banned. A By-poll (occasionally also spelled ‘bye-election’, and known in the United States as a special election) is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections.

Our politicians give up with elected seat with absolutely no respect to the voters who voted them in. In Dec 2008 Karnataka held bypolls as many sitting MLAs from Congress switched over to BJP (Operation Lotus). Rumours said the bypoll costed each candidate about Rs 25 crore. The Election Commission (EC) allows you to spend Rs 25 lakh officially. It is high time EC increases the official budget to Rs 25 crore directly.

India will hold its General Election in Apr/May 2009. Reports say candidates in popular constituencies will need to spend a whopping Rs 50 crore.

EC should ban bypoll. If a candidate surrenders his/her seat then the runner up should be declared the winner provided the winner doesn’t join the party to which the runner up belongs to. To explain it in clear terms, if Congress had won the seat and BJP candidate was the runner up, then the BJP candidate can be declared the winner provided the victorious candidate (Congress) is not joining BJP.

EC should not allow candidates standing from multiple constituencies. If they win from both constituencies then a bypoll needs to held in one at govt’s expense. If the EC cannot enforce this rule, the runner up of the seat they are surrendering should be declared the winner. This way candidates will think twice before standing from multiple constituencies.

We see few sitting MLAs contesting for a MP seat (or vice versa). If they win, then they will surrender the MLA seat. Preferably the EC shouldn’t allow a sitting MLA to contest for a MP seat. If they cannot enforce this rule, the runner up of the seat they are surrendering should be declared the winner.

In India, you need to be an elected member (MP – from Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha) to be a cabinet minister. In the US it is contrary, a sitting Senate Member is not in the cabinet.

After Hillary Clinton was sworn in as the Secretary of State in Obama’s cabinet her Senate seat (New York) fell vacant. The New York Governor, David Paterson, had the power to select the replacement of Hillary Clinton. So, if we had this rule in India, the Governor of the state in which the seat fell vacant, would have had the power to choose the replacement of the MP.

First published in Oneindia.in