DailyPost 2623
543 AND COUNTING
They say that democracy is all about numbers. it is presumed that anything and everything can be made to happen with the strength of the numbers. This would necessarily mean if you have the numbers you will be able to bring the moon to the people. Till today the directed correlation between democratic delivery has not been established. No has even dared to do a research on the correlation; the impact of numerical strength on the performance of the government. Might be at the end of a landslide victory, there would have never been any deliberations on how emphatically the ensuing government can perform.
We have not found a pattern in what supposedly weak coalition governments do or can do, what minority governments can and have delivered, what governments with simple majority have delivered, and with two-thirds majority and so on. However many governments might claim this connection, this has barely been reflected in the functioning of the government, decision making moving to the next level, and the manifesto being implemented in word and spirit. When we talk of the decisions taken by the governments, we cannot relate to the numbers behind them.
Liberalisation was ushered in by a minority government and Pokhran 2 did not happen under large numbers. A 400 plus majority started running into rough weather pretty fast. And the momentous Mandal Commission report was implemented by a lame duck type of a government. The quality of the laws made, quality of parliamentary debates and its smooth functioning has nothing to do with the nature of the majority or the lack of it. Similar group of people cannot be elevated to a different level just because they have numbers. Nor does it entail in any way a learning curve for the elected representatives by which the electorate gets benefited.
Besides the presumed strength of numbers, the other numbers they know is how many times they got elected and by what margin, and how many times was he able to become a minister. In IT they say if all IT resources were to be free, what would be your value add. When asking for votes many times they talk of numbers, what the numbers would deliver no one knows, a gimmick of a different type, a rallying point. Why 400 and beyond, if a party were to get all the 543 seats, what would it mean to the country? If that delivers a good quality of life to all Indians in a span of five years, it is worth a try, otherwise every number is the same for the masses.
THE NUMBER AND DELIVERY PROPORTIONALITY NEEDS TO BE NEATLY ESTABLISHED.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.