Former President A P J Abdul Kalam Has Said...

Most of India's lawmakers are ill-informed and unsure of their objectives which hampers the nation's progress. Political parties should field candidates who have "integrity" and can deliver on development.

Political parties must place the nation above everything else and nominate people who can "work and succeed with integrity" in the elections.

"All the political parties should keep in their mind ... that the nation is bigger than the party or any individual,"

When they nominate members they must keep a motto they should select people who work with integrity and succeed with integrity, not those with a criminal background.

Candidates usually do not know what they want to do and even do not have much idea about their own constituencies.

It hampers India's progress if the candidates don't know more about the constituency.

Political parties should have a "vision" for the nation and not be concerned about the growth of themselves only.

Nation is bigger than the party. First and foremost, all the parties should consider nation bigger than party. They should work for the development of the country.

But it is a pity that they have a vision (only about) how to grow the party.

The candidates or lawmakers should update themselves with details about their constituencies like the per-capita income of the area, literacy level, number of water bodies, core competence of the seat and the infant mortality rate.

This is real politics. I call this developmental politics. Politics parties should get to know from the to-be-elected members what they will do for their constituencies.

If all these happen, then we are decentralising everything. If the MP knows all details about his area, he can shout in the parliament and ask for more funds and so on.

Varun Gandhi's hate speech should not frighten us as hate element has been used since the days of epic.

Such tactics can be countered by education and empowerment of people. What we need is education and empowerment. You educate people and they will know what is right and wrong. We should give an all out effort for creating a "youth movement".

People have to decide what is wrong and what is right. After all, vote is with them. So, we must remove ignorance and increase education and empowerment. The lower the poverty, the difference in the society can be reduced. Nobody can be taken for a ride. People will start thinking if they are educated.

Source: IndianExpress.com