THERE ARE not going to be many takers for the demand that there should be a cut off age for politicians. A nation with a 100 plus crores people, is being run by octogenarians and nonagenarians and the visions these people have for the nation, is as old as themselves, and all their services to the nation, notwithstanding, they need to have a moral responsibility to leave the reins in the hands of younger bloods.
All political ideologies are fine, as so long as they do the business of “nation making”, but the moment they deviate into the realm for personal gains and powers, it is not the political parties that need to be blamed, it is the demagogic politicians. It is their incorrigible pettishness and ignominious attitude towards their voters that makes the whole nation suffer. When people cross certain age, they show some signs of retirement. Therefore, they need to be given a platform, so that they can live the rest of their life with dignity and impart advise and give counsel to the younger generation. This way the best of those, so-called political brains would not go waste, while the younger generation would carry the nation forward.
I feel that the upper house of our Parliament is the right place for all those politicians who have crossed, say, a retirement age of sixty. Our upper house is now a safe haven for all businessmen and one-time beauty queens. It is not the popular mandate that makes them sit on those chairs. It is nomination, internal voting process and outright purchase. So why can’t we convert our upper house into a haven for all those senior ‘politicians’, irrespective of their political party lines? We could be a little more democratic too, by offering them a same platform to act and interact. This would avoid a lot of inconveniences to the nation.
Primarily, they can maintain their honour; secondly, they all will work as ‘think tanks’ for guiding the upcoming political generation; thirdly, they all will be serving the nation in a different way. And finally these seniors would stay off our arterial roads. The last thing would be the biggest benefit for the common man. When a young leader moves out, the population takes up a liking for him and they accommodate him wholeheartedly, but when an old politician of70 or 80, who has been taxing on the exchequer for ages, goes out, he would not be treated by all, alike.
People are fed up with them, and no voter is ready to accommodate them any further in any of the houses, of the state or of the centre. Either, as a concession or as a collateral expenditure, many people may agree to find them in the upper house. And sitting up there, they can do minimal harm, only to the already harmed nation.
So what if we amend our Constitution, as to make provisions for converting our upper house as an old age home for our senior ‘politicians’, of all ‘hues and cries?’ The best thing these men can do to our nation is, retire when they are in their best and let young bloods hold the chairs. Are their any takers for this ‘natural initiative?’
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