Election is approaching very fast. Before any candidates are imposed on us without consulting us, we must make our wish very clear on our candidates.
First of all, our candidates whoever they may be, must have a good character, they must not be known to demand bribe earlier as Panchayat Members or MLA’s or Ministers or in any form of their public life, they must declare their wealth and also they must declare how they accumulated their wealth. We want to know how many of the candidates managed to own fleet of expensive cars, number of Hotels, number of Mistresses and number of Bouncers. We also want to know whether they are involved in human trafficking and demanding sexual favours for the official work they do.
We further want to know from these candidates what was their role in getting justice for Fr. Bismarq. Do they approve the government decision of attacking Catholic Church thru sudden IT circular and do they feel it is wrong to select only the Catholic Church while leaving others scot-free? Do they support MEI - grant to Church Schools? Do they support Konkani and its elevation in Roman script? Will they swear that they will not defect to any other party once elected? Will they observe Secularism in dealing with the public even by opposing their party stand and their government principle? Will they oppose their government stand if it goes against secularism and minorities?
This is the only opportunity for the electorate to discuss with their representatives and get the proper answers to their queries thru the direct process of democracy. Hence, we must make good use of this opportunity to grill them once in five years.
These are the very important queries to all the election contestants we as electorate must ask when they come at our doors for campaigning and canvassing. This is the only opportunity the voters are getting to reprimand our candidates for their failure in fulfilling their given promise. This will be theright time for us to show our real democratic power. Early Democracy is based on this prnciple. This is called real "DEMOS KRATIA"
A.Veronica Fernandes.