UDP Working President, Paul Lyngdoh has rightly pointed out that money power is in crude display in the run-up to the 2023 elections scheduled to be held on February 27 next. It has become the norm for those wanting to retain their seats to use money power to the hilt and this is evident in the conversations across the state especially in the rural areas where poverty has reduced people to unquestioning, obsequious followers of candidates who offer then the highest amounts. Instead of asking people to come forward and testify against the candidate paying money to voters (at least three months before the elections are announced), the State Election Commission (SEC) should have been on its toes and spontaneously sent feelers around to detect such subtle attempts to bribe the voters. Does the SEC believe that anyone will come forward and testify against a benefactor especially if the beneficiary is a poor, voiceless, decrepit voter reduced to penury and without a guaranteed means of livelihood? This is expecting too much and even the SEC itself knows it is just completing formalities since there have been complaints by rival candidates about the ‘gold rush’ that the 2023 elections should be termed as.
In constituencies like Nongkrem the role of money is overpowering. If only the SEC could employ spies it would have yielded the results it is looking for. But since the Election Commission of India (ECI) is reduced to an institution giving out advisories and with the ‘noble’ aim of conducting free and fair elections without the wherewithal to detect money changing hands between voters and candidates, elections will continue to be what they are in this country. And money will continue to play a major role in deciding winners and losers, especially as citizens become more desperately pushed to the status of those living below poverty line (BPL) which in Meghalaya is a whopping 37%.
In Meghalaya we are looking at an unquestioning, cynical, uneducated voter with very little choice to vote for change. A similar situation exists in the outback of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh. All forms of religious institutions that claim to put the fear of God in their adherents seem to collapse like a pack of cards during this season. At times there is active connivance to campaign for one of their own, despite the person’s faults and failings. In fact, the whispering campaign in religious circles had started months ago. The churches are obliged to the MDA Government for agreeing to put the brakes on their casino project as if casinos are the only evil and poverty, negative human development indices and illiteracy are not worse than some rich folks gambling away their ill-gotten wealth. Clearly there appears no hope at the end of the tunnel for those hoping for change in Meghalaya post March 3, 2023.
