We have a whole month to think wisely about who to give our valuable vote on November 20. I hope none of you will vote for the same people who have been responsible for the mess the country finds itself in today. I also hope you won’t be confused anymore with their hollow speeches and pompous talk and will vote for the change you really want to see.

They are all ‘competitors’ on stage but close ‘comrades’ behind the curtains. Behind the curtains, they are hand in glove! Their fighting on stage is as fake as a photoshopped image but they make it look real by sheer acting which is the only thing that they are capable of doing capably. So don’t go by what they preach in public. Instead, think about what they have done to us in practice over the past several decades.

Then think about this alliance they have formed. Not long ago, they were ‘class enemies’, calling each other ‘the enemy of the people’ and ‘murderers and terrorists’, fixing prices for each other’s heads. But today they have dramatically become best buddies, wining and dining together, drinking from the same glass and eating from the same plate, leaving one to wonder why they don’t just unite and form the ‘Unified Nepali Congress Maoist Socialist Party?!

They sold us dreams which were just mirages. Some of them sold us the dream of a ‘New Nepal’. Others said they would turn the country into another Switzerland and Singapore within a decade. But we all know what the country has turned into and what it has become like.

Some of them inflicted colossal pain on the nation through their deadly ‘People’s War’, killing thousands and maiming thousands of others, damaging national and private property worth hundreds of billions of rupees, sloganeering all the while - ‘Down with Indian expansionism’ and ‘Death to American imperialism’.

But today these same countries have seemingly turned out to be their favorite nations! I hope that many of you now know that they fought their so-called people’s war against the Nepali State by making India’s Noida their headquarters for more than eight of the 10-year long war! I also hope you know the real motive behind their ‘Tunnel war against India’ propaganda and how hard they are now trying to be friends with America!!

When you ask them, they say the bloodshed was necessary for the ‘big change’ and that things have ‘changed’ since then for the better in the country. Yes, things have changed for the better but only for them and their cronies. Things have changed so much that they can gift crucial and juicy positions of power to their children, nephews and nieces and in-laws. Things have changed so much that over 2,000 youths are leaving the country every day to find employment abroad and that if countries like the US, Australia, Canada, UK, Japan etc are to loosen up their visa policies a bit, hardly will anyone want to live in this country. Things have changed so much that our ‘agriculture-based’ country had to import food worth nearly Rs 380 billion in the last fiscal year, including rice worth Rs 47.57 billion, corn worth Rs 19.65 billion, vegetables worth Rs 36.54 billion and fruits worth Rs 25 billion.

All of this happened and is happening as they take turns to govern us. Many of them have become ministers or held other powerful positions many times. But have failed us every time. Some of them have already become the country’s prime minister not only twice or thrice but even up to five times and yet have done nothing worth remembering! Still - and I feel a sense of sadness when I say this - some of us want to give them a sixth innings!

Most of them have reached the fag end of their lives, or at least the retirement age. Yet they don’t want to retire willingly, blocking the path to leadership for the capable youths in their own parties. They have been occupying the chairs for such a long time that even the ‘youth leaders’ in their parties are approaching 50 years of age now.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that they are all the same though the names of their parties and their flags are different. They all have no scruples. No principle. No vision. Their only goal appears to be to rob the state coffers for themselves and for their near and dear ones and accumulate wealth for the next seven generations to come.

The November 20 elections are exactly a month away. That means we still have a whole month to think wisely about who to give our valuable vote to. I hope none of you will vote for the same people who have been responsible for the mess the country finds itself in today. I also hope you won’t be confused anymore with their hollow speeches and pompous talk and will vote for the change you really want to see.

They fooled us once. They fooled us twice…Can they fool us every time?

 
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