IT’S NOT POPULARITY BUT RESPONSIBILITY THAT MATTERS

IT’S NOT POPULARITY BUT RESPONSIBILITY THAT MATTERS

19-OCT-ENG 2

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA-----------------------------A new trend has emerged in politics these days—giving election tickets to people who have gained popularity through films, singing, or social media. Whether they're celebrities like Khesari Lal Yadav, Maithili Thakur, Ritesh Pandey, or Pawan Singh, granting them party tickets doesn't strengthen democratic tradition, but rather derails it.

The most important thing in democracy isn't popularity, but responsibility. An artist entertains on stage, while a public representative bears the burden of the public's joys and sorrows. There's a vast difference between the two roles. Politics doesn't rely solely on applause and crowds—it requires understanding, sensitivity, and accountability to society.

Giving tickets to popular faces is a kind of web of popularity with the public, in which real issues like development, unemployment, education, and health disappear. This gradually transforms politics into an entertainment platform, where the voices of genuine public service are drowned out by the applause of the artists.

I clearly believe that this trend amounts to deceiving the public in the name of popularity. In a democracy, it's character, not faces, that matters; intentions, not voices, that matter. Therefore, every political party must consider whether they are electing representatives to shape the nation's policies, or artists to mobilize crowds.

Democracy will only be strengthened when tickets go to deserving, honest, and public-spirited individuals—not those who are popular only on stage.

Would you like our Parliament to become a film stage in the future? This is the question every conscious citizen should ask themselves.