Our current Prime Minister, Respected Shri Modi ji has done some wonderful work for India and its citizens. Prominent achievements include building good military capabilities, counter strike operations, striving to increase the ranking of India's human development indices, ease of doing business and making India an investor-friendly nation through many schemes and upgrading archaic policies. Modiji must be indeed commended for taking India on the global stage, for raising the prestige of India and creating a brand value for India. Coming up with attractive and citizen-friendly schemes like universal health care, insurance cover for the poor and the farmers, financial inclusion through opening bank accounts for tens of millions of marginalised people are indeed remarkable achievements. By honouring public figures irrespective of their party affiliations, Respected Modiji has indeed given these stalwarts their due recognition. But more pressing work needs to be done. Given the current flood scenario in India, there is a urgent need to make rain water harvesting widespread, making check dams and interlinking rivers after due diligence. Respected Modiji is indeed a tall leader and his legacy will remain and inspire generations in the decades to come. Indeed, Respected Modi ji will be remembered as a great communicator and a great implementer of ideas.
However, who will uphold the democratic traditions of India in 2024? This is a very relevant question as worldwide it is found that in the first term, a strong elected candidate gives first degree pain, by the second term he gives second degree pain, and if elected for the third term he gives third degree pain. India and Indians would well be alert to having such a situation. Globally, all the major democracies limit the terms of their heads of state to two. In fact, I would extend the argument to say that only the elected party/coalition must get a maximum of four terms but the head of state must change every two terms. This would ensure that there is no misuse of power. Four terms would ensure that a party has enough time to implement its plans and policies. The head of state must be skillful and know how to deal with individuals and a mass of people who have emotions. There must be checks and balances and it becomes imperative to have strong institutions like the Supreme Court, The Chief Vigilance Commissioner, the Lok Pal, the Parliament, The state legislative assemblies, the civil society, the CAG, etc but at the same time strong institutions must not overreach their mandate through overzealous assertiveness. After two elected terms the incumbent candidate makes way for a new leader and a new set of leadership.
However, who will uphold the democratic traditions of India in 2024? This is a very relevant question as worldwide it is found that in the first term, a strong elected candidate gives first degree pain, by the second term he gives second degree pain, and if elected for the third term he gives third degree pain. India and Indians would well be alert to having such a situation. Globally, all the major democracies limit the terms of their heads of state to two. In fact, I would extend the argument to say that only the elected party/coalition must get a maximum of four terms but the head of state must change every two terms. This would ensure that there is no misuse of power. Four terms would ensure that a party has enough time to implement its plans and policies. The head of state must be skillful and know how to deal with individuals and a mass of people who have emotions. There must be checks and balances and it becomes imperative to have strong institutions like the Supreme Court, The Chief Vigilance Commissioner, the Lok Pal, the Parliament, The state legislative assemblies, the civil society, the CAG, etc but at the same time strong institutions must not overreach their mandate through overzealous assertiveness. After two elected terms the incumbent candidate makes way for a new leader and a new set of leadership.
Succession planning process is one of the most
significant strategies in a political party because it ensures the perpetuity
of the party and helps the organization become dynamic and versatile in its
approach to deal with change. Succession planning strategy is tricky. It is the
art of finding a right fit for a future empty position. The reason succession
planning strategy is tricky is that it makes the party dig through everyone in
the party and choose the right fit. The second reason for which succession
planning strategy is tricky is if the party fails to choose the right person
without realizing it, it would affect the nation hugely in the long run. People
don’t realize until it’s too late. Succession planning is the art of
strategically looking for the right fit especially for the position of a senior
political candidate. Whenever the party sits with the process of doing
succession planning strategy, what they do is to choose someone whose
experience, qualification and ambition match the criteria for the senior political
role. Succession planning strategy is an art and science. And it has a lot to do
with the perpetuity of the party.
Essence of
Democracy: Democracy is a system of government
where the citizens exercise power by voting. In a direct democracy, the
citizens as a whole form a governing body and vote directly on each issue. In a
representative democracy the citizens elect representatives from among
themselves. These representatives meet to form a governing body, such as a
legislature. In a liberal democracy, the powers of the majority are exercised
within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits
the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of
certain individual rights, e.g. freedom of speech, or freedom of association.
"Rule
of the majority" is commonly referred to as democracy. John Locke wrote:
"There is no practical alternative to majority political rule – i.e., to
taking the consent of the majority as the act of the whole and binding every
individual. It would be next to impossible to obtain the consent of every
individual before acting collectively ... No rational people could desire and
constitute a society that had to dissolve straightaway because the majority was
unable to make the final decision and the society was incapable of acting as
one body."
Democracy
is a system of processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on what
participants do, but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes. The
uncertainty of outcomes is inherent in democracy. Democracy makes all forces
struggle repeatedly to realize their interests and devolves power from groups
of people to sets of rules. Western democracy, as distinct from that which
existed in pre-modern societies, is generally considered to have originated in
city-states such as Classical Athens and the Roman Republic, where various
schemes and degrees of enfranchisement of the free male population were
observed before the form disappeared in the West at the beginning of late
antiquity. The English word dates back to the 16th century, from the older
Middle French and Middle Latin equivalents.
According
to American political scientist Larry Diamond, democracy consists of four key
elements: a political system for choosing and replacing the government through
free and fair elections; the active participation of the people, as citizens,
in politics and civic life; protection of the human rights of all citizens; a
rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.
Todd Landman, nevertheless, draws our attention to the fact that democracy and
human rights are two different concepts and that "there must be greater
specificity in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of democracy and
human rights".
Democracy
contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by an individual,
as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of
individuals, as in an oligarchy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited
from Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have
mixed democratic, oligarchic and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined
democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on
opportunities for the people to control their leaders and to oust them without
the need for a revolution.
The US Presidential
Election Process is A good Example
An
election for president of the United States happens every four years on the
first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The next presidential
election will be November 3, 2020.
Primaries,
Caucuses, and Political Conventions: The election process begins with primary
elections and caucuses. These are two methods that states use to select a
potential presidential nominee
In
general, primaries use secret ballots for voting. Caucuses are local gatherings
of voters who vote at the end of the meeting for a particular candidate. Then
it moves to nominating conventions, during which political parties each select
a nominee to unite behind. During a political party convention, each
presidential nominee also announces a vice presidential running mate. The
candidates then campaign across the country to explain their views and plans to
voters. They may also participate in debates with candidates from other
parties.
What is
the Role of the Electoral College? During the general election, Americans go to
their polling place to cast their vote for president. But the tally of those
votes—the popular vote—does not determine the winner. Instead, presidential
elections use the Electoral College. To win the election, a candidate must
receive a majority of electoral votes. In the event no candidate receives a
majority, the House of Representatives chooses the president and the Senate chooses
the vice president.
The BJP/NDA will
never be short of leaders to lead the country. Here is a pick of the best.
Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma (born 1 February 1969) is an Indian politician serving as the 15th and incumbent Chief Minister of Assam since 2021. A former member of the Indian National Congress political party. Sarma joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on 23 August 2015.[1] He is a five time Member of the Assam Legislative Assembly from Jalukbari, having been elected in 2001. He also served as Minister in the Government of Assam. Sarma studied at Cotton College and later obtained a bachelor of laws from Government Law College in Guwahati. He later became a solicitor and practised law at Gauhati High Court before his entry to politics. Sarma was the Congress candidate for Jalukbari in 2001 and he defeated AGP leader Bhrigu Phukan. He was made a minister of state in the First Tarun Gogoi cabinet twice. He was inducted into the Second Tarun Gogoi cabinet and was upgraded to a cabinet minister. He served in the third cabinet before he resigned from congress.
Devendra
Gangadharrao Fadnavis is an Indian
politician who is the 18th and incumbent Chief Minister of Maharashtra, in
office since October 2014. A member of Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh, at the age of 44, he became the second youngest Chief
Minister of Maharashtra after Sharad Pawar. Fadnavis represents the Nagpur
South West constituency in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. He is only the
second CM of Maharashtra, after Vasantrao Naik to have completed his full
tenure as Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
Sanjeev
Balyan is an Indian politician and member of
the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was first elected to the Lok Sabha in the 2014
Indian general elections from the Muzaffarnagar constituency. He defeated Kadir
Rana of the Bahujan Samaj Party by a margin of more than four lakh votes. He
was appointed as minister of state for Agriculture and food processing in the
National Democratic Alliance government in May 2014. Then, in July 2016, he was
moved to be Minister of State for Water Resources, River Development &
Ganga Rejuvenation, under Minister Uma Bharti. He was moved out of the ministry
in September 2017 but he again made a comeback in the ministry when he defeated
Ajit Singh in a very close contest in the 2019 elections. He is a Jat and
farmer leader. He is appointed as minister of State for Animal Husbandry,
Fisheries and Dairying on 30 May 2019 under Giriraj Singh. He is a veterinarian
by qualification and did his Ph.D. in Veterinary Anatomy. He comes from Kutbi
village in Muzaffarnagar district.
Ram Madhav (born 22 August 1964) is an Indian Statesman, writer and
journalist. He serves as the National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata
Party. He was a member of the National Executive of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh and has authored several books. His latest is Uneasy Neighbours: India
and China after Fifty Years of the War. Madhav was born to Janaki Devi in
Amalapuram in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh on 22 August 1964. Primarily
a student of engineering, he earned his Diploma in Electrical Engineering from
Andhra Pradesh. He has a post-graduate degree in Political Science from the
University of Mysore, Karnataka. Madhav's association with the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh began as a teenager. He volunteered to be a full-time worker
for RSS in 1981. He was assigned to several key positions in the organization. He
was the editor of Bharatiya Pragna, a monthly magazine in English published by
Pragna Bharati, and associate editor of Jagriti, a Telugu weekly. He worked as
a journalist for over 20 years with RSS sponsored publications and authored
more than twelve books. He serves as the Director of the India Foundation, an
RSS-aligned think-tank focused on the issues, challenges and opportunities of
the Indian polity.
Meenakshi
Lekhi is an Indian politician belonging to
the Bharatiya Janata Party and is a Member of Parliament from New Delhi
constituency in the 16th Lok Sabha. She is the national spokesperson of
Bharatiya Janata Party and a Supreme Court of India lawyer. She won the
high-profile New Delhi parliamentary constituency with over 4.5 lakh votes as a
BJP candidate in the 2014 elections. In July 2016, she was appointed as
chairperson of the Committee on Privileges of the Lok Sabha in Parliament and
is continuing since then in that position. Meenakshi Lekhi was born on 30 April
1967 (52 years; as in 2019) in New Delhi. Her zodiac sign is Taurus. She
graduated in B.SC (Botany) from Delhi University’s Hindu College and joined the
Campus Law Centre-I to pursue her LLB Degree. After completing her LLB, Lekhi
registered herself with the Delhi-Bar Council in 1990.
Yogi Adityanath (born Ajay Mohan Bisht on 5 June 1972
is an Indian monk and Hindu nationalist politician serving as the 22nd and
current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, in office since 19 March 2017. He was
appointed as the Chief Minister on 26 March 2017 after the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) won the 2017 State Assembly elections, in which he was a prominent
campaigner. He has been the Member of Parliament from the Gorakhpur
constituency, Uttar Pradesh, for five consecutive terms since 1998. Adityanath
is also the Mahant or head priest of the Gorakhnath Math, a Hindu temple in
Gorakhpur, a position he has held since the death of his spiritual
"father", Mahant Avaidyanath, in September 2014. He has an image as a
right-wing populist Hindutva firebrand. He left his home around the 1990s to
join the Ayodhya Ram temple movement. Around that time, he also came under the
influence of Mahant Avaidyanath, the chief priest of the Gorakhnath Math and
became his disciple. Subsequently, he was given the name 'Yogi Adityanath' and
designated as the successor of the Mahant Avaidyanath. While based in Gorakhpur
after his initiation, Adityanath has often visited his ancestral village,
establishing a school there in 1998.
Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma is an Indian politician. He
was a member of the Lok Sabha elected in 2014 from Saharanpur as a candidate of
the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is educated at The Doon School and International
Management Institute. He was the member of Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly
thrice. Raghav stood for the by election from Sarsawa and won handsomely but
lost in the 2002 Assembly election from the same seat. He later won from
Saharanpur Nagar seat in 2007 and reclaimed it in 2012 Assembly Polls before
entering into Lok Sabha in a highly polarised election in which he defeated
nearest Congress candidate by 65 thousand votes. He is also the Vice President
of BJP's youth wing BJYM. In 22 December 2017 he moved a private member bill in
the Lok Sabha seeking India must advocate a stringent population policy to
overcome the rising population growth and disallow subsidies to those who
produce more than two children.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan (born 5 March 1959) is an Indian politician and member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He is currently a member of the legislative assembly of the State of Madhya Pradesh. He previously served as the Chief Minister of the Madhya Pradesh, between 2005 and 2018. As a leader of the BJP, Chouhan served as its general secretary and president of its Madhya Pradesh state unit. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in 1972, as a 13-year-old. He is a five-time Member of Parliament, having represented Vidisha in the Lok Sabha, the lower House of the Indian Parliament, between 1991 and 2006. In 2007, he had introduced schemes named as Ladli Laxmi Yojna, Kanyadhan Yojna and Janani Suraksha Yojna to focus on the prevention of female infanticide in the state. "Medhavi Vidhyati Yojana" and "Medhavi Chhatra Yojna" to 70% in 12th MP Board Bhopal and 85% CBSE Delhi.Shivraj Singh Chouhan was born in the family of Prem Singh Chouhan and his wife Sundar Bai Chouhan in the Jait village of Sehore district. Belonging to KIRAR community, he is a gold medalist in M. A. (Philosophy) from Barkatullah University, Bhopal. He is an agriculturist by profession. He is married to Sadhna Singh and they have two sons Kartrikey and Kunal.
Piyush Vedprakash Goyal (born 13 June 1964) is an Indian politician and the current minister of Railways and Commerce in the Government of India. He was elevated to Cabinet Minister position on 3 September 2017. He is currently a Member of Parliament for Rajya Sabha from the state of Maharashtra, and the Deputy Leader of Rajya Sabha. He was earlier the National Treasurer of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He headed the BJP's Information Communication Campaign Committee and oversaw the publicity and advertising campaign of the party including the social media outreach for the Indian General Elections 2014. Goyal is the 2018 Carnot Prize Recipient for distinguished contributions to energy policy. Piyush Goyal has been allocated the cabinet ministry for Narendra Modi led NDA government in May 2019. He is currently taking charge as Minister of Railways and Minister of Commerce and Industry. Piyush Goyal has had a strong academic record - all-India second rank holder in CA Final Chartered Accountant and second rank holder in Law in Mumbai University. He has participated in Leadership Programs at Yale University (2011), Oxford University (2012) and Princeton University (2013). He did his schooling from Don Bosco High School, Matunga. He was brilliant student in school time.
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