Once again it is the election time!

Elections come and go, every five years in India. 

Be it Central or State, the tempo that it builds certainly reaches a crescendo as it nears the D Day and then falls flat for the next five years! Silent and unresponsive!

Many a time, as tax payers, we have felt that the government should have been more responsive to our sufferings. More responsive to the way taxes are collected.

Many times, we feel that so many different taxes continue to be collected by the local bodies, central and state governments in various forms and shapes. We spend a few people on the job of tax related work! Tax payment do the government continues to be a major exercise!

Neither is the tax collection easy on our pocket; nor is it easy on our mind. There is always a pressure of filing returns every month for GST (3 reports to be exact) and the TDS payments. Now we have TCS payments too! Instead of simplifying tax payment procedures aren't we getting harangued continuously on some ground are other for tax related issues.

Many times we find that our government is NOT our government. There just seem to be no ears for them to listen to our pleas. All our petitions fall into the dustbin. And what could be the reason for that?

I have spent considerable amount of time trying to see why this is happening. Why is it that governments move away from the voter after the elections? 

There is only one reason, why this happens. And that is, people do not vote for 'their representative'; instead they vote for their 'leader's representative'.

Let me explain what this means. The person who stands for election is shortlisted by the top management of every party and is announced by them on constituency basis. On most cases, these are people who are nominated by the party leadership rather than a person who has a presence in the locality.

And the person who gets elected wins the vote because the 'leader' supports him. Because of the party rather than because of his popularity in the constituency or because he reflects our opinion!

The failure in choosing the right person is not because of the leader, is not because of the person who stands for election, but because of us, the voters. We do not realise our job!

Our job is to elect our representative who will stand up and take for the constituency and who will reflect our thoughts in the assembly or in the Parliament. We SHOULD NOT elect a representative of the leader! If both are one and the same, that would be great!

But please make sure, you elect your representative. It is those representatives who should sit together and elect their  leader of the Assembly / Parliament. A Chief Minister or Prime Minister cannot be 'nominated' by the party. They should get elected by the MLAs or MPs. 

As Bhagavat Gita says, 

BG 18.47: It is better to do one’s own dharma, even though imperfectly, than to do another’s dharma, even though perfectly. By doing one’s innate duties, a person does not incur sin.

Every time you do not do your job and try to do the MLAs / MPs job, you are incurring sin! Let us not do the job of MLA or MP. Let us do our job. Let us elect our representative. If you have elected the right person, they will ensure that the Government is stable and also ensure that they have a good leader who will lead the state / country to the next level!