Maharashtra Elections: Go away Congress!!
(Originally published at Desicritics.org on October 13, 2009. Please visit http://desicritics.org/2009/10/13/080030.php to read more than 50 comments to this article and to contribute your own)
Today, for the first time in 32 years of my life, I cast my ballot! And who could have thought that my first ever ballot would go in favour of the Saffron Forces!
Throughout my life I have raised my voice against these two parties for their religious fanaticism and the disgrace they have brought to the country through the Mumbai & Gujarat Riots!
Yet today I had no option but to vote for the BJP-Shiv sena alliance!
Even as I pressed the blue button next to the symbol of the lotus flower, I felt a surge of power within me, a power that comes when you have a gun for vengeance in your hand, a power that I felt we as a people had lost post-26/11… and I enjoyed every bit of it.
It seemed like the gods in Vidhan Sabha and Rajya Sabha watched over me with disdain on their faces as I slapped their shameless faces with the push of a button!
It was my turn today to lash out at them post-26/11: My time to wield power and let them know how vulnerable one can feel when one is at somebody else’s mercy for their very existence. I wanted to let them know how it feels when people who put their trust in you let you down!
The Congress has lost my goodwill at the State level! And no amount of “Pseudo-Secularism” card it plays, it will have no sympathy from people like me on the issue of 26/11.
And even though I had to fight with my Boss yesterday for a leave on Election Day (despite all the Government Circulars that had been printed in newspapers asking for offices to remain closed for the convenience of employees to cast their ballot!); against all odds I went to vote!
-x-x-x-
I just HAD TO vote this time!
26/11 changed my life! 10 Terrorists from across the border took a joy-ride into this city by sea, in a ferry boat, to hold an entire City and Country hostage for 4 unholy days!
In broad daylight they easily managed to open fire at hundreds of peaceful people – men, women, children and the old! They massacred an Israeli couple in their own house, and held numerous people as hostages at two grand hotels in the city!
The shameful lapse in Security on the part of the Indian Government was so huge that men in uniform had to lay down their lives fighting enemies within the border! This, even as men-in-white in Power in Delhi and Mumbai, roamed around with Z security in their bullet-proof cars!
Never before had the city known such a ghastly and open attack on its soil! The common man had finally caught the Congress Government (both at National and State Level) sleeping!
If we were living in the Age of the Samurais, these people in Government should have committed suicide for failing to provide security to the common man, who is actually their master and not vice-versa!
Instead the Indian Home Minister rubbed salt to fresh wounds of this city, wounds that had still not stopped bleeding, let alone heal. He changed his attire for the media every morning and evening like a Celebrity but couldn’t change the same old clichéd statement he had come out with after every previous Terrorist attack elsewhere!
And then our glamour-boy, the Chief Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh decided to stroll through one of the Hotels at the end of the Attack with his actor son and a director! Gosh! All so glamour-ish, it was, right in front of the eyes of the common man who sat traumatised in front of the television sets watching them!
So highly drunk on power was the Congress high-command that it asked these foot-soldiers to resign, instead of the entire party resigning at the State Level itself! They failed to recognise that their Government had absolutely failed to provide the least of security to the common man and it had no right or business whatsoever to continue after the shameful debacle!
Instead, as the Candle-light vigil died down, and the citizenry had to go back to their normal work for bread and butter, the Congress Government decided to take a complete U-turn on the promise that it had given to the Indian people that of not resuming any talks with Pakistan unless the bigshots in the Pakistani establishment responsible for the Mumbai Terror Attack were bought to book! The Congress Government decided to show mercy to Pakistan at Sharm-el-Sheikh (kitni sharm ki baat, ofcourse!) only to meet a disgruntled Opposition in the Parliament and a popular public disapproval back home!
I had to vote this time! I had to vote the Congress out of power in Maharashtra, to put my part of the nail in its coffin at the State level, even though they have been a huge support for the Gay rights struggle in India (amendment of article 377, which this gay guy is thankful for). However, post 26/11; my Patriotism for my country comes before my Sexuality in the list of Priority.
It is not an issue for this Mumbaikar whether Ajmal Kasab is hanged or not! I look at him as an adolescent foot-soldier, who now captive deserves our mercy! But for people who failed to protect us, and exposed us to 26/11 – Go Congress Go!!!
Yet even as I write this article, majority of the so-called modern people of Mumbai may still vote for the Congress as it views the Saffron forces with suspicion, and the Congress may come back to power.
10 terrorists came by Boat. 288 Terrorists may soon come by VOTE. Beware!
And for Mumbaikars who burnt candles at the Gateway of India but did not vote today, the word for today is:
Idiot: n. A foolish, ignorant or stupid person (from Greek meaning private and ignorant, a person not entitled to vote)
