Poll dance: Will you show them the finger?

Silly season starts in the country later this month when election dates are announced. And it will come at the right time, just after the United States caught a cold and the world started sneezing.
Call it the fourth stimulus package, if you will. All told, the electoral spend could be as high as Rs 15,000 crore. The cap on expenditure by a contestant stands at Rs 35 lakh but everybody gets by with a little help from friends. The whirlwind tours by politicians, the gifts to voters, the convoys, and the money shelled out to ensure the right numbers at rallies etc. are seldom accounted for in a contestant’s books.
Finally, a lot of jobs will created, albeit for a short time. Taxi operators will have a tight schedule, printing presses will go into overdrive, unemployed villagers will be wooed like never before and the chai-and-omelette wallahs will have a field day.
Coupled with the new industrial policy the Karnataka government announced on Saturday (which envisages creation of another 10 lakh jobs) and the Budget 2009-10 initiatives by the Yeddyurappa administration, we will finally see some good cheer reaching the most neglected homes in the state.
Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that each candidate will spend between Rs 7 and 8 crore (at a conservative estimate), depending on the number – and pockets -- of opponents. A study by the Centre of Media Studies says that what India will spend in the next 3-4 months will top the expenditure incurred during the US Presidential polls over a year.
But what good is this great democratic process to the average young, urban citizen? How many of you will go to the polling booths and show everybody the finger – for the indelible ink on it?
Politicians don’t care much about the average young, urban citizen. That is not their constituency, as former Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy showed during his mega JD(S) rally in Bangalore. So it is not surprising that while vigilante groups roam Karnataka’s mega cities -- attacking women for wearing jeans, talking in English or going to a restaurant because they are too tired to cook after a hard day’s work -- police take a backseat and the local politician hardly ever shows concern.
So what option does the average young, urban citizen have when she or he goes out to vote in Karnataka? As things stand today, zilch.
But what you do have is the power of money.
You have the power to stop patronizing pubs outside which people like you were attacked. After all, how many pub owners have joined issue when their patrons were assaulted? The liquor barons of Karnataka have the clout to put an end to this menace by just picking up the phone and asking the government to act. But they will not do so unless you switch to other brands.
The average young, urban citizen has two choices -- democracy or econocracy. If you choose the latter, spend it wisely.