“They cannot make anything better, they can only litter!”
In the course of one of my field engagements in Delhi University (DU), the aforementioned comment by a passerby caught my ear. Such a statement had significant bearing for two reasons.
One, the modus operandi of the process of electioneering can be less appealing to the general populace considering the wastage of resources (here, paper).
Two, the bigger picture where a sense of disillusionment rests with regard to the phenomenon of elections itself. In a nation characterised by many variants and a number of elections, any election campaign seeks to improve conditions from what is existing to that which is ‘better’.
Elections to student unions is one such example. From infrastructural improvements in the university to conditions of betterment outside of it, students and their parties often end up promising the world to the students.