There is an overwhelming demand for fundamental change!

An interview of Comrade Suryakant Shinge, people's candidate for South Mumbai Lok Sabha constituency by correspondent of People's Voice

Correspondent. Comrade Suryakant, in these elections, the recognized parties focused on the media – and high-tech media at that, to conduct their campaign. We are curious to know about how you, a candidate selected by people's organisations, conducted your propaganda.

Suryakant Shinge. As you know, over a few months, and with interactions and meetings of different types between various organizations, we had jointly come up with a People's Charter of Demands, which we wanted to make the focus. The key point in this was accountability of representatives to the people's committees.

Our main propaganda tool was the print medium – manifesto and leaflets. We brought these out in Marathi, Hindi, Urdu as well as Telugu. It was important to get these to the largest number of people. Many organisations supported me in this, and door-to-door campaigning was a major part of our campaign.

Lok Raj Sangathan helped us to set up a website for my campaign. Papers like your own People's Voice, as well as a local Hindi weekly and Telugu daily regularly published accounts of our campaign. An enterprising young journalist of The Telegraph featured my campaign in a front page article. However apart from this, the large media ignored us.

Every day was a padayatra day. In addition to this we had two public meetings – one in which the candidacy was announced, and the next one on the last Sunday. That was preceded by an impressive morcha.

Correspondent. When you went among the people, what was their reaction?

Suryakant Shinge. We got various types of reactions. Wherever we went there was cynicism and distrust about the political system. People realise that there is a need for a fundamental change, but they do not know how it will come.

Most people read our manifesto very carefully. No one disagreed with the People's Charter. The questions were about how to implement it. This led to a lot of discussion. Many people expressed best wishes for our venture. Particularly among the organized workers – and we went to a large number of their colonies, the response was very positive.

Our campaign got off to a wonderful start on March 8, when in an International Women's Day program in Worli, the local members of Purogami Mahila Sangathan spontaneously came to the stage and expressed their support. How important their support was, was proved when we had a public meeting in their area on the last Sunday of the campaign. Certain political forces had terrorized the residents and shopkeepers adjoining the maidan, and they refused to give us the electricity connection. But these women were undaunted. They readily gave the connection from their building, and we were able to have a wonderful meeting.

However in some places, people would rant and take out their gussa (anger) on us. After all, we were going to their doors – those who had betrayed them time and again were not. One young man came out shouting – "Where is the candidate? I want to beat him up!" When we talked soberly and fearlessly, he cooled down, apologized and even commended us for our work. "I am so angry, I had decided to beat up any candidate who comes to my door asking for votes."  Turned out that he was a policeman. He was actually on ground zero on 26/11, and two of his colleagues had got injured. Nothing had been done by the authorities for them. His anger was also due to the abysmal way common people are treated.

Garment workers, particularly, were delighted that one of them was fighting the elections with their program. They mobilised nominators, took us to their areas and introduced me by going door-to-door, and participated in our morcha and public meeting in large numbers.

Communists of several other parties came and took us door to door in their areas, introduced us and our program and asked people to vote for me. One of them told us, "Actually we were going to cast a negative vote. It is very good that you are standing. We are very happy that we have a communist whom we can vote for."

Correspondent. What difficulties did you face due to the present electoral process?

Suryakant Shinge. To put in very simple terms, all this talk about "level playing field" is just nonsense. The recognized parties are well-oiled electoral machines. What they are recognised for by the people is a different story. If you ask the aam admi (man on the street), he will unhesitatingly say that he recognises them as anti-people in every possible way. At the time of elections, and even at every other time, they do their propaganda day in and day out, either because the media considers them newsworthy or because they use their money power to get publicity. Since they represent the interests of big industrial houses, they have no problem of funds. That means they have no problems of manpower either.

In the name of promoting free and fair elections, they have made it even more difficult for candidates who do not belong to the so called recognised parties. We get our symbol barely two weeks before the end of the campaign. The number of bureaucratic procedures has multiplied. The sheer effort that goes into getting permissions of various types is daunting. Cheaper means of propaganda are being taken out of our hands. It is difficult to get permission to use a loudspeaker from a moving vehicle. We had problems every step of the way, but we used our creativity and turned many of them into opportunities.

I could go on and on about the farce that is the 25 lakh rupee ceiling on expenses of each candidate.

For candidates like me, this limit is too high to make any sense. Our campaign was entirely voluntary. Not a single person was paid to participate. This was beyond the auditor's imagination and he kept raising objections on these grounds. We had to keep answering them in writing. I feel we should have added a zero to every item of expenditure - then he would have been happy, and we would still have come nowhere near the 25 lakh cap!

On the other hand, everyone knows that big parties spend crores on a single seat. But the expenses they show are below 25 lakhs, and the officers are happy.

Correspondent. What are your plans for the coming period?

Suryakant Shinge. Well, the election campaign was a step in the direction of people's empowerment. That is the crying need of our times, the key issue, and the cause for which so many of us have dedicated our lives. Our country is crying for a thorough overhauling, a complete renewal of the political and economic system. There are only two programs possible for society today – either the wishes of today's ruling class gets implemented, or the people become the real rulers and their program gets implemented. We have to popularise this second alternative and prepare the grounds for implementing that.

The struggle to fight for issues of the people, the struggle to build Lok Raj Samitis, the organs of struggle, the organs of the future people's power, was going on before the elections, and will go on now as well. By participating in the elections, we have deepened our knowledge about this system, and that will help us in our fight. Our organisations, our cause is now known to a much wider spectrum of people, and this will definitely broaden and deepen our work.