Despite Dice Loaded against People's Candidates, Suryakant Shinge Enters the Electoral Arena

Suryakant Shinge, a young garment worker and an activist of the workers' unions and people's organisations, has entered the electoral arena to push an agenda in the interest of working people. He faced many hurdles even to file his nomination. The Election Commission made him run around for two days to get some certificate from the Election Commission of his area of residence, although he had already procured a similar certificate from the Tehsildar's office. Without the resources and the electoral machinery wielded by the political parties of establishment, the bureaucratic hurdles can tie you down and significantly hurt the campaign of candidates not belonging to such parties.

Suryakant campaign committee contacted the organizers of a "Meet your candidate" meeting organised by some NGOs on Sunday, 12 April 2009 in Gamdevi, South Mumbai. Unfortunately, there was no level playing field here either. The whole meeting was dominated by candidates who were pushing the agenda of big monopoly houses. The sentiment of the people, however, was against the establishment parties. One participant openly challenged two independent candidates having an economic agenda similar to that of the established parties (one top bank executive of a multinational bank and the other a surgeon), by asking "Why should I vote for either of you? Milind Deora made the same promises that you have, but didn’t deliver," He was obviously referring to the total lack of accountability in this system of the elected representatives towards the people of the constituency. One of the fundamental points in Suryakant's program is submitting to the will of the constituency through Lok Raj Samitis. However, the supporters of the major political parties like Congress Party and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, disrupted the meeting after their party speakers had a chance to speak, thereby giving an excuse to the organisers not to hear the candidates who are challenging the status quo.

Notwithstanding difficulty in getting media time, the campaign of Suryakant Shinge is making good headway. The sentiment of ordinary workers for Suryakant's candidature can be seen in the generous contribution of garment workers. A group of about a dozen garment workers had planned a picnic in Alibagh. They had collected 2800/- Rupees for this purpose. When they heard that Suryakant was standing in the election, they simply cancelled their picnic and handed over this money to him. After filing and scrutiny, the campaign of Suryakant is in the door to door mode now. A team of people went door to door in the Lal Bagh area. People are touched by this bold effort to challenge the wrong politics of the big parties. They are readily agreeing to the new people's politics and offering their small but important monetary contributions as well as support. They agree that there is a choice this time and a vote not cast in favour of Surykant is a vote wrongly cast.