There are plenty of reasons for winning and losing any election. Supporters, well wishers, experts and analysts of each political party do their bit after losing any election. Most of the feedback revolves around choice of candidates, religion specific votes, freebee, subsidy and development.
Surprisingly none of the parties brainstorm on the pain areas of voters that could have been addressed at local level by their party office through corporator, MP and MLA.
What is the experience of the citizens? How much do citizens remember while voting? What is the impact of recent events while voting? What is the motivation to vote and request others to vote? What is the role of candidates to ensure they win?
Difficult to say in terms of percentage but the observation on social media and in particular forwards of WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter has a lot to say and assist in creating an impression. This can be summed up in single sentence. THE MISSING TILE SYNDROME. The more missing tiles a party has, lesser the seats.
The Missing Tile Syndrome is coined by Dennis Prager. It means focusing on things that we don’t have and in the process, robbing ourselves of happiness. We tend to focus on what is missing instead of what is present.
Central government may have delivered on many promises but each citizen may have one or MISSING TILE.
A copy paste formula is the most dangerous work any political party can do. While most political parties are innovative in their approach to hurt chances of BJP to win an election, BJP has stuck to DEVELOPMENT. It must be noted that opposition strategy revolves around work that disrupts public life or create panic (train accidents, burning public property, stone pelting, supporting naxals, church under attack, award wapsi, etc). This was the reason why I started writing about Grievance Redressal from 2015 onwards. The solution to all problems doesn’t lies in DEVELOPMENT.
Each city or a town has different income group and religion background people in different locality. They have different needs and areas of concern. Missing Tile theory can help political parties understand what are the grey areas they need to focus. All Missing Tiles from political party or citizens point of view are GRIEVANCE.
As always the blame for low voter turnout is on citizens. Be it Maharashtra, Haryana or Delhi, the story is the same. The voting percentage of BJP may have gone up but the party still trails. The answer to this lies in connecting with the masses. Modi being PM will work on Development. What do the corporator, MLA, MLC, MP, Chief Minister and the Cabinet Ministers do?
Riding the success of Brand Modi has limited success. What next? Think how BJP MP, MLA and Corporator connect with their voter base. going to party leader office is not the solution.
In July 2019 the writer had done a series on Twitter with hashtag #VoterIsConsumerToo
What are the types of Grievance that a loyal voter may not like to forget?
Hindus are looking out for equal treatment in law and order implementation. While lot of Supreme Court orders with regard to loud speakers and blocking road for prayers are not implemented, Delhi Police went ahead and arrested Delhi Citizens for bursting crackers on Deepawali. Imagine the citizens who were arrested just for buying a Sutli Bomb on Deepawali for their children. Who will he vote?
Dr Harshvardhan is too concerned on environment on Diwali but maintains silence on other festivals.
While hard working middle class can’t afford to buy a home even on EMI, illegal colonies are regularised.
While Shahi Imam is not arrested despite several NBW and BJPs Vijay G goes to his house to share development work.
While actor Kapil Sharma gets an instant response from a CM for his issues with BMC common citizens are left at the mercy of Aaple Sarkar portal.
While Hindu and India hating people get appointment with Hon PM and other high profile leaders, common citizen has to go through via contacts only to get questioned by gate keepers of the leaders who don’t deserve a basic Namaste from the troubled citizen.
High time BJP or its supporters stop finding faults in citizens when they lose an election. Expecting citizens to be loyal is fine but the ones whose life is disturbed and could have been attended to would think differently. Time to look inward.
Small or big, timely Grievance Redressal can lead to excellent word of mouth publicity. It reduces verbal and physical fight, police and court case. Above all it saves time, money of law abiding citizens that can be chanalised to some other constructive work.
Readers should know PMO has a track record of replying to letters on the day it receives. It is the CM, Cabinet Ministers, MP, MLA who need to find time from their schedule. If Suresh Prabhu and Late Smt Sushma Swaraj could do, what stops others from doing it?
There is an application “My Visit” created by NIC for requesting appointments. How many citizens are aware of it? How many MP MLA CM Cabinet Ministers and officers under them are using it? Why can’t they activate this application? NaMo is the best person to take this forward. Just an appraisal of ministers once in a while doesn’t serve any purpose.
It is so easy to curse the citizens when some leaders loose an election by few votes. This is the time NOTA is checked. Development is good but not an answer to all issues. Think of small issues that take away peace of mind of an ordinary citizen. Highways, New Rail connectivity, FDIs, etc. will never come to rescue the citizen. At that point of time he wants as simple as an online Appointment Application in all regional languages for detailed work and issues. For simpler ones the leaders should be on social media or best an App that has time bound escalation, if issue not resolved.
Prime Minster personally is very concerned on Grievance Redressal. Apart from citizens point of view, this also leads to drainage of revenue, frustration, legal cases, conversion, low self esteem and many social issues.
Now the time has come where he takes up this issue just like Swachh Bharat and also speaks about it in one of his Mann Ki Baat.
The Missing Tile Syndrome- Anyone listening?
Picture Credit: Screenshots from Twitter, NIC
Author: @ZeroAppeasement on Twitter
