Eternally Hungry Voters

"Buy a Grinder and get a mixie free" says a commercial by a prominent consumer goods dealer. But get both free says a political party. Thanks to Assembly elections. Last time it was TV sets now its mixies / grinders next would be.. refridgerator i suppose. The incumbent in Tamilnadu had distributed rice at Rs.2 a kilo as promised which had ushered the opposition to promise 20 kg of rice, for nearly 1.90 crore cardholders free.

Whereas when huge stocks of foodgrains were rotting last year for lack of storage space the Food minister replied that the same cannot be distributed free even after the intereference of the Apex court. This reply was expected from a politician. But it was more hurting when our Economist-Prime Minister too supported him by arguing that it would destroy the incentive of our farmers to produce more food.

Hence i wonder if the freebies (incl. free/subsidised foodgrains) as manifested by parties are only incentives to produce more. If not the PM would have very much stopped them, if not as a politician atleast as an Economist.

With more unaccounted cash being unearthed everyday, the political parties finding
difficult to bribe (by cash) the voters are choosing the easy way of offering (consumer) goodies under the pretext of election manifesto.

Why the same parties forget to promise/mention under their manifesto things like, Citizen-Friendly-Governance, Increased Participation of Civil Society, Corruption free Administration, Lokpal Bill, etc will never be thought of by the aam-aadmi (atleast till elections) who is lured by goodies. Thus even the aam-aadmi is forced into the pool of consumerism which is the main source of revenue for politics both on-stream and off-stream.

I really wonder if there was ever a petition by people to the govt asking for mixie / grinder. But scores of petitions are really pending under corruption cases. Why not resolve to reduce their instances or settle them. That would happen only in Utopia, as the game of politics is to keep the voters as hungry, unarmed and formless spectators always.