India voted, many Indians voted, and I voted too. I was amongst the 43% of the adult Mumbai population who exercised their voting right in the 2009 elections. Apparently the ‘Jaago Re’ campaign, with all its fanfare and star appeal proved unsuccessful. Their attempt to awaken the masses and drag them to the polling booths, proved futile. I am not surprised. I think the campaign itself was flawed. Their problem was they tried to correlate ‘not voting’ to sleeping; and like many of my fellow citizens, I couldn’t figure out what’s wrong with sleeping. I love to sleep, and I am sure the majority of Indians who decided not to vote love it too. Thus trying to brainwash a nation that’s a big fan of the ‘I want to sleep for five more minutes’ club, didn’t work. But that’s Ok. I am happy with the candidates that we 43% of us elected for all of us.

My biggest surprise on polling day was the list of candidates contesting from our constituency. There were 23 candidates in all, of which 3 belonged to political parties I was aware of, 14 were nominees of political parties I never even knew existed, and 6 were independents. What was even more surprising was that most of these candidates were not even residents of our area. A few of them, including a few independent candidates, were not even from Mumbai. I mean what were they thinking when they filed for nomination? Now I am no political pundit, nor do I understand or follow exit polls and predications, but isn’t it a no-brainier that these non-local, non-popular candidates, had no chance of winning. Then why were they even contesting? Why did they even bother to nominate themselves? I wonder if they even get the minimum number of votes to get their deposits back.

I am not against independent candidates contesting elections, nor am I against the smaller local parties. What I am trying to assess is the thought process behind these small parties and independent candidates filing a nomination from a constituency they didn’t belong to and where they are almost unheard of? In a city like Mumbai where even both candidates of Professionals Party of India (a party of educated professionals only) lost, and the much hyped independent candidate Meera Sanyal (the ex head honcho of ABN Amro), contesting from south Mumbai did not gather enough votes to even get her deposit back; should be enough food for thought for those over optimistic independents and smaller parties to rethink their election strategy. Jaago Re !!

Well with the elections over, so are the ‘Jaago Re’ campaigns. I am sure they will resurface again five years later (and hopefully not earlier). What’s riding the popularity wave in India now, are the Vodafone Zoozoos. While the Zoozoo’s, no doubt, have become very popular; wonder how much have they helped boost sales? Wonder how many viewers switched over to a Vodafone on seeing Zoozoo being swallowed by a crocodile?