Natijaey

Ok, so the election results are old news-Mr.Badal is all set to return to his Chief Minister's post on the 14th of this month. This whole election was a record-breaking one- the voting percentage was the highest ever, the ruling party came back to power and we will now have the oldest chief minister in the country. The victory of SAD-BJP over the Congress is a surprise given the past history of the state. Depending on which side your sympathies lie with, you either believe that this spells big trouble for Punjab or you are really happy that your party (and therefore you) and Punjab will be in chardi kala for another 5 years. But one common thought that I have heard from people on both sides is, that in the larger scheme of things, it doesn't really matter which of these two parties is in power as the underlying issues of corruption, nepotism, etc always remain constant. What I find surprising and disappointing is that PPP, the party which held some promise to tackle these issues failed to win even one seat in these elections. Like I had mentioned in one of my previous posts (Votaan), it was very unlikely that they could have made a huge impact on the elections in the first-go itself. I am also aware of the fact that PPP has not proven itself enough as of now and it needs to work its way up from the grassroots level to win the peoples' trust. But, just the fact that there was an alternative to the routine crop of politicians with their open (and hidden) agendas should have been enough to motivate people to at least give them one victory. That ,of course, did not happen and people just voted based on their long held beliefs or loyalties. Punjabis need to give change a chance, we really need to start voting based on issues and past performance and not just for whoever our dadajis voted for.

 Source: http://ibnlive.in.com/elections2012/punjab_intractivemap.html