We have been hearing them shouting in the house. We have been seeing them fighting in the house. We have seen them taking bribes for raising questions. We have seen them tearing apart the law papers. We have seen them selling their phone and gas quotas. We have seen them selling their Local Area Development Funds. Now we also see them indulge in peep shows while the house is engaged in debate. This is the kind of people we vote to power; but then this is the kind of people our political parties field in the elections!

The status of the parliamentary institutions has eroded as never before. Its reputation has attained an all time low. Are our political parties bothered? Are we worried? It is indeed a matter of grave concern that while these political parties promise a clean political environment collectively, individually their sole objective is to field candidates on the basis of their winnability. Lowering the rank even further, their loyalty to the people who matter in the party becomes the major criteria. So even if these political parties have two persons with equal chances of winning, the balance invariably turns in favour of the candidate who is more loyal to the leader, however dubious his character might be!

Candidates too know that however loyal they may be to the people in general, when it comes to finding favours for the candidature, their loyalty to the leader is all that matters. Thus, their attention is more on fulfilling the wants of their leaders, rather than caring for the people. In this course of politics, the people are always the losers. No one is at blame more than we for such a situation. We, the people! It is we who treat the democracy as a horse race! While making our choice, we forget that the democracy is no horse race. We limit our choice to the candidates with winnability factor and completely ignore the one who possess righteous virtues.

I think it now to be a matter of shame that we allowed all people to vote from day one without taking their intellect into account. How can those who have no understanding of the democracy be the pillars of democracy? How can those for whom the caste, creed, religion and region are still some of the major criteria to vote, choose the right candidate to run the country? When we shall have the people with little understanding in the selection board, selection would definitely be a farce. America did not give the right to vote to its black population and the women when it declared itself a democratic nation. It was years later, when it thought that these groups are now able enough to exercise their votes that it gave them such right.

Unfortunately, we are still not in the process of making our people capable enough to exercise their votes keeping in mind the welfare of the country or even their own welfare. None of the political parties and none of our leaders want this to happen anyway because they all know, and know it too well, that in making the people aware of the welfare of the nation, they shall jeopardize their known welfare. While the interest of the political parties is at loggerheads with the interest of the nation and its people, we can hardly blame these parties for not adopting measures in favour of the nation. Populist measures such as free distribution of cycles, sale of heavily subsidized rice, waiver of loans, are considered to be the measures of development! By granting doles, these political parties may allure people to vote in their favour, but they are continuously making the people beggars. Can a nation be strengthened by throwing majority of its population into beggary?