What is different in this year's Indian elections

A Whatsapp message from a friend got me thinking on why this year's Indian elections seem to be different. Most people I talk to, seem to think that this election is going to be decisive. It seems to be a once in a life time opportunity to move away from our "not so fondly remembered" ways of building a nation and moving towards genuine development. The following seems to be some highlights of this election that we haven't noticed in previous ones:

Discussion about what matters

The whole charade about who is more secular and who helps which community has been mostly replaced by a discussion on things that matter to the citizens - employment, infrastructure growth, inflation, economic growth, corruption, governance, etc.

Participative elections

We are seeing people from all walks of life participate in the elections - either through main stream parties or through new offshoots. This includes 

• Business professionals - Nandan Nilakeni, Balakrishnan, Meera Sanyal, etc
• Ex-Army men - Gen. V.K.Singh, Rajvardhan Rathore, Sanjeev Tripathi (from RAW), etc
• Ex-Police officers - Satyapal Singh plus a few more (can't remember their names)
• Sportsmen - Mohammed Kaif, Baichung Bhutia, etc

Clear differentiation between the Prime Ministerial candidates

While on one side, we have Narendra Modi as the candidate who has grown ground-up and has established himself as a doer, on the other side we have Rahul Gandhi who represents the dynastic Indian politics and is projected as more of a thinker. This gives the voters a clear choice - either go with the one who gets stuff done or with the one who provides a vision for a team to work towards.

Sense of national pride

When Narendra Modi asks why India has so many problems even after 60 years of Independence, it makes us think about where we have failed as a nation and how we can use this election to correct our past mistakes. This makes us ruminate on what we are proud of & what we are ashamed of and forces us to use this election as a decisive step towards change.

Social networks to start a discussion

While we have seen political parties use all channels to reach out to voters, but, for the first time, social forums - both online and offline (like "chai pe charcha") are being used to discuss ideas, problems and solutions.