As citizens: How you can choose the right political leader for your constituency.
Choosing the right candidate to rule you is the toughest challenge every citizen faces during elections. Unless and until the voter has a soft concern towards a particular candidate or party.
The most important thing you need to understand is the type of elections you will be participating in. A voter has the right to choose candidates they feel are right for them. The different and most common elections in India are the general elections, the Lok Sabha elections, state assembly elections, local body elections (includes corporation, municipality, panchayats etc).
During elections voters are presented with the most important choice to elect the leaders. Here are a few characteristics you can look for to elect the right candidate:
1. Check the manifestation of the party or the individual:
By checking the manifesto helps you to understand the ideology of the party or the individual. If this manifesto speaks about what you’re looking for, then you can choose to vote to that leader.
Usually parties build their manifesto based on the interest of people of the entire area in which they are participating. For example a party contesting for Lok Sabha Elections writes a manifesto that caters to the entire country, whereas an independent candidate contesting will be writing on the development works, specific to the constituency he is contesting for.
2. Track the past public developmental records of the leader:
Consider all the developmental works that the leader has worked for and how much interest he has shown towards development. It’s not only important to check his past developmental it’s even important to understand what are his future plans towards development.
To better understand leaders visit
3. How much participation a leader shows in decision making:
This shows the eagerness and involvement of the leader. It is important to understand how other leaders in the party value his words. It’s important to know if the leader has the capacity and can be backed to get the sanctions from the government.
4. Know how transparent, accountable and accessible the leader is:
This is very much important for you to gauge in a leader. There is no point if a leader is elected and is not accessible. A good political leader is a people leader, i.e a leader who is accessible and always spends time with the people. It is important for the citizens to know what activities the leader is involved in and even the leader has to share the activities which he is working on.
5. Evaluate based on the candidates stand on public issues:
Prepare a report card on the priority of issues the candidates has stood for. Check if these issues help you or the country for betterment. This way you can draw a conclusion about the candidate.
6. Learn what the public thinks about the leader:
Discussing with your friends, neighbours and family can get you an idea of what others think about the leader.
7. Track the past public records of the leader:
Checking if the leader has been involved in any criminal activities or any public offense cases were registered against him.
Before looking at the characteristics in a leader, it’s important for you to understand what kind and what qualities you’re looking for in a leader. Most of these information are easily accessible and are available around you. Newspaper, News Channels, Leaders personal websites are a good source of information.
Your vote should always be in favor of leaders or parties who are good public servants.