Just 2 days to go for the voting in Mumbai and I am still debating who to vote for. Finally, I decided to jot down the negative points of both the parties - the Congress and the BJP, at least as far as my meager knowledge and awareness would allow me to. The side with less negative points would get my vote. In case you are wondering, I don't think much of either the weak 3rd front or the Delhi-fiasco called AAP.

The incumbent government first:

- Despite two consecutive terms at the center, there isn't much to show on the economic front. They don't seem to have any concrete plan for tackling unemployment and inflation.
- No tough stance against the Pakistan imported terrorism. The naxals are having a field day. The armed forces are saddled with obsolete weapons.
- Crony capitalism. I admit though that if BJP were to come to power, it wouldn't be much different.
- The party needs to be shaken out of their belief that the top job is theirs for the asking. 5 years of sitting in opposition would certainly do them mighty good.
- My biggest bug-bear is that the country is being ruled by a foreigner aka Sonia Gandhi. Yeah, yeah, she wears a saree and all that. But being married to an Indian and living here for years doesn't make her an Indian. Wait, I am under no illusion that a PM who is an Indian by ethnicity will strive for the country's betterment. Yet, for me it is simply unpalatable that the government is being run by a foreigner by proxy.

Now it's the turn of the BJP:

- Godhra. And by that I don't only mean the killing of the Muslims. Hindu pilgrims were killed as well, though hardly anyone seems to talk about it. People from both communities died on Modi's watch.
- Was Gujarat really transformed under Modi's rule or not? There seems to be no way to find out for sure for a common person like me. Even if there was progress, can Modi repeat the performance at the national level? Would he?
- The perceived threat of dictatorship. Sometimes I wonder if people in the world's largest democracy deserve democracy or not. Much as I would like to believe that a few years under a dictator would straighten every Indian out, I cannot make myself wish it upon my country. However broken, democracy is good.
- the fact that Modi has almost abandoned the woman he was married to when they were very young. If he didn't consider a child-marriage as a legal marriage, why didn't he persuade her to get married and get on with her life? Much as we would like to believe that the public life of a leader is separate from his personal one, they are really two sides of the same coin, isn't it? You choose one, you get the other too.
- Why do I cringe every time the ad 'हम मोदीजीको लानेवाले है, अच्छे दिन आनेवाले है' is played on the FM channels? Why can't I believe the man when he says that he will do this and do that?

You with me so far? If you are, then you can see that this is really a choice between the devil and the deep sea i.e. no choice at all. My sense of decency won't allow me to flip a coin and be done with it. NOTA sounds rather like sitting on the fence. God knows the economy wants a decisive win with clear majority. Yet casting my lot with either the BJP or the Congress feels like I am not doing enough as the citizen of this country.

Increasingly, I am dreading waking up on 24th morning. :-(