Poll Vault

WEST MIDNAPORE

NOT too long ago, she was setting national sprint records in the pool with her butterfly stroke. Then, she switched sights to the sea, and beat all other women in a 26-km crawl across the Toroneous Gulf in Greece in 2002. But Bula Chowdhury probably faces her toughest haul yet as a CPIM candidate on the hard, unyielding terrain of West Midnapore.

For the sporting icon, this is a new adventure: Begin the day at 4.30 am in Kolaghat, her marital home within the constituency, and hit the road in Nandanpur by 8 am. Through the ups and downs of the campaign, her constant companions are her husband Sanjib Chakraborty, their son Sarbajit, 12, and a motorbike for the non-existent roads.

8216;8216;Motorbikes are exciting and different,8217;8217; says Chowdhury with a twinkle in her eye. 8216;8216;I8217;ve covered every corner of the constituency on a bike.8217;8217;

The excitement accompanies her through the day, as she recounts to a mesmerised audience sporty stories from the past, describes the feats that won her two President8217;s medals and an Arjuna Award, drops in for a quick lunch with an obliging party supporter and hits the road again, her bright Tangail saree neatly tucked in as she rides pillion.

A sure-shot for the CPIM till its four-time MLA Chhaya Bera passed away in 1998, Nandanpur gave the Trinamool8217;s Soumen Mohapatra the slenderest of victories in 2001. Since then, though, the agrarian constituency has seen little of him: The commonest complaints of the 159,000 voters concern basic facilities such as roads and education8212;or the lack of them.

For a novice politician, 8216;Bula-di8217; is wise enough not to promise the moon. 8216;8216;You need a daughter of the soil, someone who can be with you. What is the use of making tall promises at the moment?8217;8217; she asks rhetorically as the villagers look on.

8216;8216;But,8217;8217; she adds, 8216;8216;I8217;m sure you won8217;t disappoint me.8217;8217;

The class XII graduate and Sahara India manager is openly banking on her personal power. That was the most important magnet for the CPIM bosses as well.

8216;8216;Anil Biswas the late state secretary of the CPI-M invited me to the Alimuddin Street party office, he told me my sports identity could be my USP in winning the polls and serving the people,8217;8217; says Chowdhury. 8216;8216;I saw the invitation as an honour and could not refuse Anil-da, though I had had no plans to join politics or even the CPIM8212;though they are the only organised party in West Bengal.8217;8217;

With the glory days of swimming firmly behind her at 36, Chowdhury thinks politics 8216;8216;is the way to do something worthwhile8217;8217;. The silverware, though, may not match up.

MICHAEL Ignatieff, Canadian-born scholar of liberalism, once said that it was difficult to gain human rights in societies without widespread taxation. Read these profiles of political aspiration, and that axiom is automatically extended. Democracy, to be truly representative, must have fresh and repeated infusions of the widest assortment of electoral candidates.

So, the management guru with flowcharts for more effective delivery of civic goods, the swimmer with competitive metaphors for accessing something as basic as medical care, the theatre artist with a flair for capturing the imagination of the Assamese street, the film actors poll-vaulting into the fray with reel-life idealism8212;all of them do more than add variety to election-time narrative.

They do, each one of them8212;and, hurrah, in ever increasing numbers8212;enlarge the space for politics in Indian society. They add depth to the public discourse on interaction between state and individual. And more importantly, they8212;just with their presence in the fray, never mind the final tally8212;emphasise the ownership of public goods and governance by us, the silent majority.

Why does that swimmer matter? Why does the filmstar strike a difference from the tradition of a celluloid takeovers in the form of the Jayalalithaas and NTRs, or even the Jaya Bachchans? To feel the diversification of Indian democracy, let8217;s see the distance it has traversed. The first spate of elections, post-1947, was charged with the nationalist enthusiasm. The political class was not yet stratified, and entrants with a worthy cause were given a Nehruvian welcome.

After Nehru, politics began demarcating its space. The stakes were now scoped out on an oppositional principle. The eighties and especially the nineties did expand the space, but really only by deepening the demographic profile of the politician. Now, entry was opened to spokespersons for caste and religious interest groups. Those not of the political class could join it only by identifying with ever more delineated votebanks.

In the 2000s, a new type of electoral candidate has gained visibility: The non-politician politician, the candidate who refuses to be co-opted by the political class. That group of IIT students with a plank of meritocracy and accountability, for instance. They do not speak the language of political affiliation. They may not even8212;yet8212;have a winning chance. But the issues that they raise cannot be ignored. And, in amplifying a growing awareness that politics matters and that good governance is our entitlement, they bridge the distance between the neta and aam junta.

Watch this non-politician politician. His is a growing tribe. And each new candidate can be that most revolutionary entity, that town crier who captures the imagination of the neighbourhood and intimates the rulers and aspirants to the corridors that theirs is not the right to mould agenda. It is, instead, to listen and to respond. Certainly, every other non-politician politician will become a hardened politician. And will, then, be well advised to keep his ears open to the voice of the next wave of non-politician politician.

Ex-files

RAJEEV PI

KOCHI

ALPHONSE Kannanthanam is on a roll in Kanhirapally. In an Ambassador full of comrades singing his praises and honking resolutely on its way to the district collectorate to get his poll symbol, Delhi8217;s demolition man rubs his cut, swollen and elaborately bandaged feet and says, 8216;8216;Hey man, this is the life. I love this.8217;8217;

Walking off the cloisters of the IAS into the rough of the campaign trail has already taken its toll. 8216;8216;I think I8217;ll be in plaster neck down by the time this gets over. But it8217;s great fun, yaar,8217;8217; says the CPIM8217;s showpiece Independent.

Alphonse says there are three things that he has come to enjoy the most in the switch from starched-collar civil servant to aspirant-MLA mode. 8216;8216;I don8217;t need to crawl through files. I don8217;t need to polish my shoes in the morning. I don8217;t even have to begin my day calling assorted idiots 8216;Sir8217;,8217;8217; he counts off.

Alphonse8217;s feet may have taken a knocking, but not his spirit. He gets into campaign mode every morning at 5 am, and gets home past 2 am. 8216;8216;I8217;ve learnt to sleep enough in just a couple of hours,8217;8217; he insists.

Alphonse8217;s campaigning is a long blur of frenetic, largely apolitical speechmaking punctuated by footing it out into corners where his car can8217;t make it. He also makes it a point to sit with locals and chat them up. 8216;8216;They aren8217;t bothered about any highbrow development paradigm stuff. All they want is things like drinking water,8217;8217; Alphonse has found out.

Alphonse8217;s problem is that he is no blue-eyed boy of the powerful V S Achuthanandan faction in the CPM which will have a major say in the LDF government if the Left wins this poll. Not merely because the other faction led by Pinarayi Vijayan had roped him in, but since he had had his open run-in with VS while he was Commissioner for Land Use.

Act II Scene I

SAMUDRA GUPTA KASHYAP

PATHSALA

BARPETA

EVERY July, when the mobile theatre companies of Assam launch their three-month-long rehearsals for the new season, Ratan Lahkar, owner and chief producer of Kohinoor Theatre, always manages to hit the headlines with his novel ideas. Among them: the Titanic, recreated on stage; Diana, Princess of Wales; and, last year, Spotty, a 14-month-old Dalmatian from Bangalore, to play the lead in a play called Maya Mamata.

Last week, though, Lahkar hit the headlines rather ahead of schedule when he decided to contest the current Assam assembly elections.

Though not aligned to any party, Lahkar, 62, refuses to accept the term 8216;independent8217;: 8216;8216;I am the people8217;s candidate. I never wanted to contest the polls. But when the people of this constituency found that the Asom Gana Parishad AGP had failed to choose the right candidate, they pressed me to join the fray.8217;8217;

Though never an AGP member, Lahkar is a rebel AGP candidate of sorts: The entire local committee of the party resigned to protest the nomination of a former AASU leader and is now campaigning for him.

8216;8216;For me, standing for an election has happened rather suddenly. Though I love appearing before the people8212;after all, I have been entertaining people for over 30 years8212;this time it is different. There8217;s no written script. And the people aren8217;t just the audience but also the directors of this new play I am figuring in,8217;8217; says Lahkar, taking a breather from his campaign in a remote village called Khardhora Kokratoli.

Lahkar8217;s 30-year old theatre company is one of the most prestigious among the 40 such companies in Assam, employing 150 people for nearly 10 months of the year. Mobile theatre, in fact, is the state8217;s biggest entertainment industry, employing over 6,000 people and worth about Rs 20 crore.

8216;8216;But the most important contribution of mobile theatres is the funds they raise to set up colleges and schools in a state where government funds are too little to maintain them,8217;8217; says Lahkar.

The conscientiousness of the artiste is evident in every speech he makes. If at one meeting, he quotes Lord Krishna from the Mahabharata, at another, his inspiration is Othello. And then he follows it up by saying: 8216;8216;I am not pressing you to vote for me. Examine every candidate closely. Discuss amongst yourselves and then decide. Beware, you are reposing all your faith on a person for the next five years.8217;8217;

Amma8217;s own

JAYA MENON

CHENNAI

HE wears no greasepaint, just flashy trousers and shirts. The saffron sindoor on his forehead is not cosmetic either, but a symbol of his extreme religiosity8212;the explanation for his long association with the BJP before he joined the AIADMK in June 2004.

But his solemn demeanour is a conscious add-on. 8216;8216;I don8217;t want to make people giggle or laugh,8217;8217; says S V Shekhar, noted for his comedy roles on screen and stage. 8216;8216;I want people to think I am intelligent. I don8217;t want them to think I am a comedian.8217;8217;

There8217;s certainly nothing funny about the gruelling schedule the 56-year-old has been maintaining, juggling callsheets for his latest film Vallavan on one hand and campaigning on the other. 8216;8216;If I step out of my house, it is my constituency,8217;8217; says Shekhar, tucking into a quick lunch at home in Foreshore Estate. 8216;8216;But Napolean is an outsider.8217;8217;

The Napolean in question is his rival, villain-turned-hero on celluloid and current DMK MLA from Brahmin-dominated Mylapore. To combat the power of his conventional good looks and unconventional cinema roles, Shekhar is adopting his leader8217;s strategy of maintaining 8216;8216;a positive attitude8217;8217; during the campaign.

Believing 8216;8216;there8217;s no point throwing mud at somebody,8217;8217; Shekhar lists the achievements of his chief minister J Jayalalithaa and talks about how the Central ministers from Tamil Nadu are holding up the state8217;s plans for a major desalination plant for water-starved Chennai.

Gimmicks, however, work best. On the first day of his campaign, AIADMK sympathisers from Villivakkam sped through the Mylapore constituency, demanding to know where their MLA Napoleon was. 8216;8216;Where is he, our MLA? We haven8217;t seen him in the past five years? Have any of you seen him?8217;8217; thundered a jeepload of men.

To follow up that kickstart, and maintain his accessible image, Shekhar makes it a point to answer every call on his mobile. 8216;8216;I don8217;t let my secretaries pick up my phone. I answer the calls personally,8217;8217; he says. 8216;8216;Nor do I hesitate to jump onto public transport or knock on doors to seek votes.8217;8217; Now if only someone would answer his call.