Soliloquy

There are several reasons as to why I will not vote in the general elections this year, but the most significant is the one which I was drilled into in school by my social science teacher. 

A lady impeccable in her manners and far outreaching in her conduct, she told me what I remember every time my disenchantment with the political system in the country overcomes me with emotion: don’t vote, it only encourages them. 

I did not realise the full import of her words until a few months after the state assembly elections in Telangana last winter and driven by the rashness of youth, made full use of my so-called ‘franchise’ when accorded with it at first. 

It was only after the change of government in the state – the Indian National Congress now has the mandate after toppling the incumbent Bharat Rashtra Samithi – that I realised what she, driven by her experience, meant.

Why I am disillusioned by voting

The biggest reason why I got disillusioned by politics – of which I take a great general interest – and voting in general is the fall from grace that our former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao enjoyed. 

My family, erstwhile public servants under the Nizam of Hyderabad, bought into the premise that KCR sold to them in 2001, and in which I got fully incorporated in my Class Ten year in 2013-14, that we had indeed been abused by incorporators from Andhra, and that the unique identity our region – the Deccan – relished had been compromised. 

KCR became the deity that my family and I worshipped at the altar of true freedom – if there ever is such a term that holds to politics – and his son K Taraka Rama Rao the embodiment of our holier-than-thou selves. The first breaches in the BRS appeared just as the ones in the Medigadda barrage of the Kaleswaram Lift Irrigation Project did. 

The toppling of the government in the state was perhaps necessary – albeit tearful to me and my family – in order to see the way KCR and his family had fooled us with their promises of a golden Telangana, one that included the infamous Dharani portal, in which millions of farmers lost their rightful lands with no means left for redressal. 

A God who had gone awry – KCR’s treatises of familiarity hardly win him praises anymore, and his son’s tirades against rightfully elected officials betray the dearth of social coherence in his personality. 

KCR’s upturned coupe de etat was as disgraceful to us as it was to the rest of the general public of Hyderabad who firmly believed in an inclusive idea of the Deccan, and his departure from Pragathi Bhavan marks the end of a disgraceful era in the region’s history, second only to that of the infamous Sarandaz Khan, the traitor of Golkonda. 

All my family and I expected from KCR and his family was a sense of belonging in the region that has given us our bread for centuries, but that was taken away by his and his son’s vitriolic lies, half-caked promises and misdeeds. Further disenchantment was added by the jumping ship of several BRS legislators to the INC’s arms, repeating what they had done when the former had first come into power.

Democracy sells, but who’s buying?

No sooner than the shock of the KCR family’s fall from grace had been documented than the general elections were upon us, and as ‘responsible citizens’ mindful of our future, we were asked to select our representatives. 

The three major forerunners that Malkajgiri, the Lok Sabha constituency which I vote for will see are deplorable, to say the least. The BRS candidate, Laxma Reddy, has no prior experience of being elected – or having been a part of politics in general – and it is extremely surprising to see him being handed the ticket of the biggest LS constituency in the country. 

One wonders as to how many favours – or suitcases of cash – he must have expended to KCR to have landed this blessing. The INC is fielding a turncoat from the BRS, Sunita Mahender Reddy, as is the BJP – former health minister of the state Eatala Rajender, who won much praise for his wisdom and perspicuity during the pandemic. 

Laxma Reddy and his party – for whom I have always voted in the past – lost my trust long ago, and as a matter of ethics I do not vote for turncoat; hence, I shall not vote this year. 

To make my point stronger, here are a few facts about the three favourites for the Malkajgiri LS seat:

1. Eatala Rajender, of the BJP, has a total net worth of INR 34 crores with 54 criminal cases pending against him.
2. Laxma Reddy, of the BRS, has a total net worth of INR 72 crores.
3. Sunitha Mahender Reddy, of the INC, has a total net worth of INR 55 crores.

Choose for yourself the lesser evil. I choose either perfection or nothing. So here, I will take nothing.

The bigger picture – nothing but thieves

If I were to – for the sake of the idea – forsake the fortunes of my local Parliamentarian but instead hop onto the bigger notion of voting for my the leader of the LS, I would be no less detestable than the politicians I loathe. 

Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, the only frontrunners for the top job in these Lok Sabha elections, have failed to win me over with either their charm or disposition. 

If I marvel at Mr Gandhi’s audacious pretension to hold prime ministerial obligations after having lost two general elections by massive landslides and after discarding, tormenting and destroying any semblance of merit within his party, I vehemently disagree with the idea of my nation that Mr Modi wants me to accept, as well as his diversionary tactics to hide the failures of his ten-year-old government. 

The only way I can get any peace in this anxiety-filled election season is by not voting at all, to allow either of these supremos to hold office without my having played a part in their accession, without my sanction – in effect, without the sanction of the victim. 

Let these hoodlums ascend the throne of India with it in their conscience that THEY DO NOT HAVE MY MANDATE – my morals will not allow me to accept anything less than that. 

That may be the only way I can sleep well at night. As for these thugs disguised in the honest political leader’s garbs, I can only hope that there is justice for them in hell even if it escapes them in life. 

As I have said before, as a matter of ethics, I choose perfection or nothing. So here, I choose nothing.

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