On boredom associated with the present election season

Ahmedabad, 20 April 2014

The election season is getting boring. First of all because it’s a summer time. Temperature is high. Ideally the national general elections should be held in winter. Leaders like Modi can still dare to hold rallies in the afternoon, but when it comes to average candidate or leader, campaign is not just possible during the afternoon hours.

The other reason for boredom associated with the current elections is the long stretched election season. There are total ten days of polling. First day of polling was on 7th of April and the last day is 12th May. This is total 36 days long period! Gap between two polling days is one week or even more in some cases! Initially the campaign, the speeches everything appealed the voters, but subsequently the election noice is becoming monotonous and routine.

The other reason for boredom associated with the present elections is predictable outcome. Frequent opinion polls have given enough hint on what is going to happen on results day. Many people look Modi vs Rahul fight as one-sided. The excitement levels are intact only at the places where top two local rival candidates are powerful.

One more reason responsible for visible boredom on the ground is presence of multiple news channels and social media which cater political content continuously.

Another reason responsible is lack of good orators. Barring just one or two leaders, where are good orators?

It is not that the boredom will effect polling percentages. People will come out to vote. But don’t expect people to come out to join campaign.

One person to thank these elections is Narendra Modi who has made the election season somewhat interesting. He’s never tired, he coins new slogans and lines, brings new issues to public If he was not there, the present elections could be the most boring ones.