Are Election Campaigns Good?

Some of the events in our nation are discussed throughout the term, no matter they take place once a year or once in five years. One such event is election, it’s a festival for the party which wins, and not-so-happy and full of controversies and fault-finding occasion for those who do not make it to a win.

The Indian General Election of 2014 was one such huge event, which was gloriously decked up with massive campaigns complimenting the brands Modi, Rahul Gandhi and others. Yes! These two seemed more of brands rather than just contenders seeking for unbiased and neutral results.

Many of us believe marketing like this to influence the decisions of voters is not correct, many of us also believe politicians make false promises during this process and back out when the right time to realize these promises comes. Are these apprehensions correct? Is this marketing a good practice?

Well! There are two schools of thought regarding this – one says public observes the work which the political parties do, and based on this, they cast their votes, so campaigns are a waste of money and should not be carried out at all.

The second school of thought says it is right to publically promote oneself, rather sell oneself to earn the trust of voters. This is because we won’t have any of point of evaluation until we hear the aspirations and intentions of these politicians.

They campaign to explain what they could do with the previous terms opportunities and how they utilize the opportunities and resources to meet the expectations of public and that is why they should be given the next opportunity to serve people.

In this process, they also ultimately end up finding faults and letting down their competitors whom they gradually start treating like their opponents. This is where the whole scenario becomes dirty and unhealthy and so the politics are labeled as dirty game players. This generalization creates problems and often the news stories carried out are also filled with the games politicians and aspiring candidates play to win the seat to reach the power. This leads to confusions and indecisiveness among the populations and this confusions leads to wasted votes or no votes at all.

Yes! Some people are unable to decide whom to choose and end up wasting their right to select a candidate by not voting at all. And also, some people get confused among the contenders and make the wrong decisions by getting impressed and influenced by the campaigns and vote for a candidate whose ideology does not match their own. This also leads to lack of satisfaction and they often lose trust and faith in the political system. This is where these campaigns prove misleading.

During the pre-elections period, we get to hear a lot election news in Hindi, English and other regional languages to give us a fair idea of what opponents are talking about each other. There are very few bulletins like ABP etc. which actually tell the true story and unbiased coverage. Therefore the debate about the campaigns being good or bad for public, does not end anywhere and the answer to the problem lies in the shades of gray.