LETTERS: Middle class matters - I

Your edit (‘Middle-class politics’, November 26) is a timely one. It is expected that the middle class and the delimitation of the constituencies will play a decisive role in the forthcoming elections. It has often been taken for granted that the issues affecting the middle class, like the quality of services provided by the state government or the local municipal corporations, are issues for local municipal elections. But these bread-and-butter issues are now affecting the middle class severely. For example, the miserable conditions in which bulk of the Mumbai population commutes daily, taking four hours a day to-and-fro, poor law and order, deterioration of local policing ethics and standards, crimes and corruption etc have disgusted the common man, the middle class or the working class.

Already, academicians and columnists have begun to worry about the resentful middle class defining the electoral victories. Any party or candidate linking with the problems of the middle class, effectively and honestly, will certainly gain.

Of course, there are some dangers. For instance, the middle class is about to be hijacked. A recent survey of a reputed economic think-tank classifies the middle class as one with an annual income of Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 12.5 lakh. These are obviously well off people. Further, there are varying classifications being used by the UPA government. One, the ‘creamy layer’ for determining who gets the benefit of reservations; and another, a miserly one, for determining the income tax exemption for the lowest rung of the tax-paying community.

The million-dollar question is whether middle class voters will take the pains to go to the polling booth on the election day and vote, or continue to be armchair critics as they have so far been. When they go beyond voting with their purses in the shopping malls, and march in increasing numbers early on the election day and cast their votes, there will indeed be a far-reaching revolution, a remarkable change in Parliamentary or legislative composition.

So far, the political class has been dangling a few carrots before the poorer classes just before the elections and have tactically ignored the middle class. Things may change now to the shock of political parties.

S Subramanyan, via email

Readers should write to:
The Editor, Business Standard, Nehru House, 4, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg,
New Delhi 110 002, Fax: (011) 23720201; letters@bsmail.in