Voters better informed, more aware like never before this time

Editor’s note, Ahmedabad, 18 March 2014

Wherever I go, for whatever reason, I just can’t separate myself from journalism.

Inside the Ahmedabad airport they offer free newspapers. I picked up The Hindu Business line to read it in flight. A day ago, the Maharashtra government had tabled its budget on assembly floor. The heading in this newspaper mentioned it was Rs. 5,417 crore revenue deficit budget! And probably because it’s election year, despite the slowdown and the dip in GDP growth, Finance Minister Ajit Pawar continued tax exemptions and he announced the 20 per cent power rate cut across 21.7 million consumers of MahaVitaran. The government, which is under attack for the alleged multi crore irrigation scam, has made an allocation of Rs 8,215 crore for irrigation projects. Fair enough.

On way to south Mumbai I spoke to driver who was Marathi manoos. Surprisingly he was aware about Rs. 5,417 crore figure of revenue deficit. At sea-link he expressed his opinion that sea-link could be better named after Chhatrapati Shivaji, instead of non-significant Rajiv Gandhi. He said nepotism works not just in jobs, but also in naming the public buildings. He not only opined that Modi should become PM, but also added that AAP is Congress sponsored to cut votes of BJP.

Fair enough. I had another car, another driver in South Mumbai. How to talk politics with him? Well, I saw some hoardings featuring Rahul Gandhi on Pedder road-Opera house stretch.

‘Bahut hoardings lagein hain inke,’ I asked, and taxi driver started discussing 2G, 3G, Koyla, CWG etc. To my surprise this man from UP, settled in Mumbai had a list of Congress-led UPA’s scams on his finger tips.

I can go on and on, and can give many other examples like this. Recently met some middle class people, some college youths and I was surprised to find their verdicts on AAP and Congress up-to-the-mark. In Delhi I suffered dog-bite, and hotel was kind enough to provide doctor to room. The doctor, his assistant and driver who carried me back to the airport

all were delighted to know that I was from Modi’s land Gujarat. Referring to Dr. Manmohan Singh a Sikh driver told me, “Yeh kaisa Sardar hai maloom nahi padta, Sardar to aapke Modi jaisa hota hain.”

And during Agra visit I found the same. The hotel desk employee was Modi’s fan, and he could speak for ten-fifteen minutes to explain why he was Modi’s fan.

What I find is, voters nowadays are better informed than past due to exposure to media. There are more news channels now unlike past when NDTV and AAJ Tak were in dominating position. Then there are plenty of new city based news channels and regional news channels too. There are more newspapers nowadays then before, and thus more democratization of information. Twitter and Facebook both were almost unknown to many during the last Lok Sabha general elections, but this time Twitter is the center point of political discussions and top-side opinion building. Facebook has replaced Orkut. And this is the first Lok Sabha election taking place in Whats-app and smart phone era. Yes, not all people use twitter, Facebook or whats-app, but those who use, always spread message to others who don’t know.

So in this video you find AAP candidate Asutosh being attacked by local voters in Delhi. And these voters had reason to do so. A youth in this video speaks how AAP convoy didn’t pay toll tax(in Gujarat). So AAP’s corrupt practice of not paying toll tax has reached this person in some lower-economic class locality of Delhi. Now that’s media exposure.

(If interested watch this video too. The fun begins after half a video is over)

Recently met some college youths and they could discuss all lies of Arvind Kejriwal. They had watched Rajat Sharma’s progamme on this.

If you think, this awareness is limited to urban areas, you must know that thanks to usability of Whats-app, mobile internet has penetrated in small towns and major villages. With TV, internet and mobile, rural youths are increasingly adopting urban mindset.

In my early years of career, I worked in mainstream newspaper. In those years, ruling political party had to take care of less than half a dozen prominent newspapers in every state to fool the people and stay in power. Advent of blogs, YouTube, broad band, twitter, Facebook, whats-app and email was unimaginable for politicians and editors in those days. Ahead of year 2014 general elections, if I say all voters are well-informed, it would be exaggeration, but there’s no doubt that more voters are better-informed.