Whom should I Vote?

If you have made up your mind for whom to vote but don’t know who are the candidates contesting in your constituency, don’t you think it’s wrong?

For instance, would you ever vote this person?

But since you have already made up your mind, you agree to vote for anyone. What if he turns out to be a local illiterate goon or a known corrupt face or someone with serious criminal charges against them?

People may ask you, “If not Modi, then who?”. Remind them that ours is not a Presidential election where we have to vote between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. We vote for the local candidates and if you want our vote, make sure you give tickets to the right candidate.

Though political party that the candidate represents and the political party’s PM candidate are important factors to consider, they are not the sole criterion! There are many more important things that you need to take into account. Here I am trying to compile a list of those, which could help you in making the decision. This would require you to research a bit and score your candidates.

It’s not necessary to be a literate to be a good leader. But someone with a non-poor background not completing their graduation is a big red flag. For someone who has multiple degrees, you can expect them to know what consistent hard work is. For someone who has degree related to Politics, you can expect them to have good understanding of Administration.

So on a scale of 10, you could give a rich illiterate 0, a poor illiterate would get 4, a graduate 6–8 and a post graduate 8 – 10 depending upon their fields of education.

2. Background in Public Service

Have they worked for public welfare before. Are they anyway connected to organization that works for benefit of the needy in the society. Have they ever filed a RTI that brought some important truth in public. What has been their contribution to the Society in general. Have they been vocal about their opinion and raise their voices against wrong.

So on a scale of 10, an Activist for right cause would get 8-10, an activist for a cause that you don’t connect would probably get 5–8. A person with no visible contribution to society would get a 0.

3. Criminal Cases

Having 0 criminal charges is not an achievement, but serious criminal charge against you is a big red flag. It’s important to know a person may have a case against him for staging a protest. So you need to read through the actually cases that are filed against them.

So here the scale would be 0 to -10. If there is nothing you get 0, if there are serious criminal charges you get -10.

4. Wealth Growth

You would know how many years and efforts it takes for a Middle Class person to earn a wealth of 1 Cr in India. When a MP earning 1L per month grow his/her wealth from 50L to 5 Cr in 5 years, you know there is something wrong here. Check for your candidate’s reported wealth for this and previous elections to find any such rags to riches story. Try to find if any of their family members or close relatives are getting richer. Also do check if they own any other legitimate business that is doing good.

So a person with 100x wealth jump gets 0 points, 10x wealth jump gets around 6 points and a person whose wealth jump is in line with his Salary gets 10 points.

5. Past Lok Sabha Performance

Someone with lower than average attendance and contribution to Parliament would get lesser points as compared to someone with more and relevant contribution.

6. Views on Social Media on different topics

Go through their Social Media profiles and try to find out what are their views and different topics. Are they just sharing content from IT Cell shared google document or have their own opinions. For eg. What did they say about #metoo movement or section 377 , and how do they interact with their critics etc.

If there is nothing you get to know about them from their Social Media Profile score them around 5, if it’s positive score them high and if it’s negative score them low.

7. Google!

Search of news related to your candidate. Are they mostly positive or negative. Don’t blindly trust any random blogs, look out for articles which has verified sources mentioned in it. Read their wiki, again don’t blindly trust wiki, cross check statements with the sources mentioned.

These are some of factors that I would consider to decide whom to vote. If there is something important I am missing out, do suggest it in comments.

We keep saying Voting is an important right and put close to zero efforts while trying to decide whom to vote. We are influenced by the Pro and Anti government propaganda on Social Media which are either heavily biased, half-truths or photo-shopped fake news. So it’s important that we do our research. Hope we all vote wisely this time!

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