The Third "P" in Elections

With  General Elections  round the corner,  political parties have started the preliminaries like
combining and combating.  New alliances are formed not on ideological identities but on electoral objective of winning.

Voters are expected to indicate their preference intelligently using two "P"s i.e Performance and Promise of the contesting parties.  Such decision may  be difficult this time because of the gap between promise and performance on the part of the present ruling dispensation as alleged by the  the the opponents  and the  absence  of any programme /plan or even not naming  a leader for the  opposing combination of  parties as chided by the ruling party.

So Voters will most likely be guided by the third "P" i.e Prejudice. Once again, caste and  faith  will decide voting.

The world's largest democracy is still to mature

My Qualitative Balance Sheet

As accountant by training and qualification, I am prone to reckon everything numerically.  But my personal Balance Sheet of Assets and Liabilities in conventional terms of rupee is  dismal.  I therefore have thought of drawing the same in qualitative terms.  No date other than the last day of 2018, a year when I completed 80 years of an uneventful life, is better suited for this purpose.

For the uninitiated in accountancy, the Balance Sheet is an enigma listing, as it does, one’s assets and liabilities with the same total on each side.  If their totals do not tally, pity the accountant burning midnight oil finding the cause and eventually proving the totals to the satisfaction of the auditors.

To escape from this problem I have drawn my personal balance sheet in qualitative terms. There is   no question of proving the totals under this method.

Here how it goes.  I have not used the conventional “T” format of Balance Sheet.

                         My Balance Sheet as on completion of 80 years of age                                                 

Capital & Liabilities                                                                      

   A. Capital

Family upbringing and Values

Education

Organisations & Work culture gained

  B. Liabilities

    Long term:  Unmet life/career ambitions

   Short term: Prejudices /biases

                         Attitudinal shortcomings

                        

                                  Assets

A.  Fixed Assets     

Blessings of parents, gurus and God

Family Harmony

Goodwill of relations and friends

B. Current Assets

     Professional  recognition

     Community acceptance

A tool in strategic management is  the Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats ( SWOT) Analysis . The usefulness of this analysis is to exploit one’s strengths, overcome weaknesses and  convert  the threats into opportunities.  The Qualitative Balance Sheet may also be seen as an analysis to enhance one’s non- monetisable assets and liquidate attitudinal  liabilities.