Third general election in as many years was bound to exact its toll on the nerves of a people weary of the sickening games that the country's politicians play, ostensibly in their name and for their welfare alone. According to preliminary accounts, as many people seemed to have stayed away from the polling booths as had taken the trouble of visiting them to exercise their right to franchise. Sab Chor Hain' was the most obvious excuse for their decision not to vote. They seemed to have concluded, wrongly, of course, that their vote was unlikely to make any difference to either the outcome of the poll or the quality and character of the administration that would emerge from it. Admittedly, such popular cynicism militates against healthy democratic functioning.
Democracy is all about people.
But if roughly half the people fail to participate in its most crucial enabling process, our democratic polity will be that much poorer. Even in cold numbers a poll in which half the people refuse to vote can make the democratic process awry. Should the low turn-out of the first phase prove to be the norm rather than the exception throughout the current election, we might end up having a government elected by less than a quarter of the total electorate. Let me explain. Since one half has decided not to vote and the other half is split in its preference for a variety of parties and candidates, it is quite on the cards that the party or a combination of parties which gets a simple majority of the seats in the 13th Lok Sabha would actually win it with the support of one-fourth of the total electorate.