Road beckons (Pic: Team BHP)
Mumbai. 2 May 2009.
Following all-round criticism for being the sole reason for low voter-turnout in the 30th April Lok-Sabha elections in city, Long Weekend today moved court to clear its name off the slur. Although most of the court officials were out of town, thanks to Long Weekend itself, a very angry Long Weekend managed to file a contempt plea in the Bandra Court.
Yes, we mean it
Speaking to the media-persons, LW reiterated that “blaming me for low turnout is like blaming Christmas Holiday for Jesus’s birth. I am the effect, and not the cause here.” On being asked whether he himself went out to vote, LW showed the middle-finger and threw a Kareena Kapoor cut-out on the reporters, shouting – “Listen, I didn’t work in that ‘Go out and Vote’ campaign, and I am mighty pissed with these dry-days already, so don’t push me more.”
Meanwhile, experts believe that repeated telecasts of Tata Tea’s ‘Jaago Re’ campaign might be responsible for the widespread fatigue among the voters. Bhavin Shah, a Mumbai Northwest voter said – “I kept on waiting at home for that Jaago-Re guy to come, offer me tea, and drag me to the booth. But none of it happened. What farce!”
Though local media is still tied over who to blame for the 40-percent turnout, it’s learnt from reliable sources that Tata Nano’s upcoming campaign for long weekends is called ‘Bhaago Re!’.
The Daily Tamasha 
“I kept on waiting at home for that Jaago-Re guy to come, offer me tea, and drag me to the booth. But none of it happened. What farce!”
LOL!!!!!
Amazing … I thought they’d finally wake up … 😉 … I hope at least the indians trapped in the Taj incident would have voted 🙂
When Taj incident happen then everyone was there to express their anger and now at the time of mega election of indian democracy,everybody disappears.
“I kept on waiting at home for that Jaago-Re guy to come, offer me tea, and drag me to the booth. But none of it happened. What farce!”
ROFL!!!
But those guys has chosen their democratic right of not to vote.So no such hard feelings for them from myside.
I was so influenced by Jaago Re campaign, that I never actually slept, bas Jagta Raha and I accidentally fell asleep on the voting day after so many sleepless nights. 😦
@ Animesh
TLOL. (Thanks for Lolling!)
@Rahul
That’s the whole point. The whole campaign was focussed on telling ppl to go out and vote…a huge moral burden without any clear indication as to how use it properly. I think that, much more than anything else, held people back. So in a way, Jaago re had a negative impact ‘cos voting was suddenly not a normal democratic exercise…it was a HUGE RESPONSIBILITY and ppl chose to not choose rather than choose badly.
@Yayaver
Democratic right of not voting is a debatable issue as not voting itself means u are not ‘adding’ to the democracy so in a way subverting it. Such simple rationalizations won’t do if our democracy has to go far. Of course, the current system has many flaws (even i didn’t vote…nor do i have a voter’s id) but this is one thing that is standing out oddly right now. Hope a debate starts and we find a middle path.
@ Anshul
🙂 I am sure Anand Tiwari (the guy who plays protagonist in Jaago re campaign) must have felt the same.
choosing not to vote is a right too. it’s just that the whole 49-o option is so messed up and difficult to use…
worse, very few are even aware of the option. maybe having the 49-o option on the EVMs would’ve seen people visit the poll booth…?
great post!
@ Reuben
From this link: http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/95521
“The section “49(O)” enables an eligible voter to go to polling booth instead of seating at home and confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer his wish not to cast his vote in favour of any candidate. The sole propose of this section is to prevent the election fraud or the misuse of votes.”
Though 49-O has been raised to mythical proportions by viral-emails and our own desperation, the truth is that it’s just a provision to count the number of willing-bogus voters. In the last conference of ADR in Mumbai, presided by CEC Gopalaswami, one delegate asked CEC directly about 49-O and he said the same thing, as to 49-O is actually redundant in times of electronic voting…and that’s why they don’t even have a ‘no vote’ button on the machine, while on the ballot paper, they had such a stamp-location.
But the bottomline, having 49-O won’t change anything. No re-election, in any case.