MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS IN DELHI
An energetic campaign by CPI(ML)
The fitting rebuff that the BJP got in the recently held elections to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has been widely seen as a confirmation of people’s growing disenchantment with the party. The defeat was so telling that even Vajpayee was forced to comment on that. However, the unprecedented sweep by the Congress could only be attributed to the angry negative vote against the BJP because the party hardly had anything positive to offer. In fact, its propaganda was quite weak and in several places its candidates were new faces lacking any impressive track record. Yet, most of them managed to romp home thanks to the strong anti-BJP wave.
The elections took place in the context of a general urban crisis, deepened to an explosive degree by the policies of globalisation. The social conditions in Delhi are no less turbulent than the volatility in Ahmedabad and other towns in Gujarat, attributed by many observers as the key reason behind the recent communal outburst. Just consider the backdrop: it is only recently that Delhi witnessed eviction of tens of thousands of workers and small industrial units due to a highhanded Supreme Court fiat. Added to this is the transport crisis now. In fact, the slum clusters, the resettlement colonies, the working class suburbs and lower middle class localities, especially in East Delhi and other outlying areas, have never had a proper urban infrastructure worth the name. In the absence of any civic amenities there are civic issues galore at all times and in all such areas. The conditions of the large migrant community – mostly rural poor from UP and Bihar who have moved into Delhi to eke out a living – are deteriorating with every passing day. Their housing problem is acute, and commuting to work consumes half their meagre daily earnings, if at all they manage to find work. And these marginalised people remain voiceless and highly insecure in the metropolitan setting. Despite their large numerical presence they find it difficult to assert. There is also a high level of frustration among those who represent the ‘new commercialism’ – the middle class business community.
The BJP went from strength to strength in Delhi in the past channelising such frustration along rightwing lines. But the wheel has come a full circle and now they find themselves at the receiving ends. When they were trounced in the last assembly elections they blamed it on the ‘onion bomb’. This time they attributed it to middle class angst at the dearer cooking gas. Whatever it is, Ram-II has proved to be as much a flop as Pokhran-II. During the municipal elections, the BJP candidates concentrated their campaign, as per the advise from their top leadership, not on local issues but on Pakistan, temple and terrorism, only to be greeted with contemptuous indifference from the voters. However, senior BJP leaders never dared to campaign even.
A profound urban social crisis like this is bound to throw up high degree of political volatility. In Delhi, the traditional base of the Congress used to be slumdwellers and urban poor but its influence among them was on the wane in the recent years. The Congress cashed in on the wave but many voters who voted for the party did so bemoaning openly the absence of any other alternative. The power of some entrenched social-political lobbies has also become very weak. The soil is conducive for the emergence of a third force but no political force has attained the necessary critical mass to project itself as an acceptable alternative to both the BJP and the Congress. The JD had some base in the early 1990s, which reflected in its fairly good vote share in the 1993 assembly elections. After that, this base disintegrated and the Congress and the BJP were able to win over this base.
After the good performance of the BSP in Uttar Pradesh there was considerable enthusiasm seen in the campaigns of this party’s candidates in Delhi. And it asserted as a social stream in a big way in this elections. Yet it seems that the BSP will not be able to retain this fervor for long because of the very nature of its politics. A political identity for Delhi’s underclass, with its teething troubles and burning day-to-day problems, is altogether a different proposition and can hardly be established through empty rhetoric. Although this party distributed tickets in Delhi for a price in a manner similar to UP, they had to rest content with just one seat.
The CPI(ML), has been engaged in grassroots struggles in Delhi for a long time, albeit limited to a few localities. Local mass organisations like Nagrik Sabha (Citizens’ Forum) and Delhi Jhuggi Jhopri Sangharsh Samiti (Delhi Slum-dwellers Struggle Forum) under its leadership have a long history of attending to several civic issues, especially in parts of East Delhi and Gramin Vikas Panchayat etc. in Narela. Local activism has remained a regular feature. A batch of local activists, with wide mass contacts built over a period of local mass work, has come up. So this time the comrades in Delhi decided to take a plunge into this election battle in order to make a modest beginning in addressing the problem of urban crisis on a political plane. CPI(ML) candidates contested from five wards, three of them being women. Party members took up campaigning with lots of enthusiasm and confidence. For the first time, broader sections acknowledged the arrival of Maaley, at least in some localities.
Though our candidates could only poll about 3000 votes in all, the gains in terms of new mass contacts and political profile, and new energy and initiatives among the ranks have proved to be invaluable. Metropolitan life has not cosmopolitanised the ‘society’ in Delhi and social identities and networks still play a big role. Our candidates were chosen with the aim of reaching out to newer sections. And our election campaign has helped us strengthen our linkages with minorities and certain backward castes, small traders, as well as with our traditional base among the migrant communities. In Narela, where we polled more than 1000 votes, we had an influential candidate who has wider social influence and is also the nucleus for Party work here. In Kondli, despite the local Party organisation being very weak, the candidate, a woman from the Muslim community, was able to mobilise people living in her slum cluster. This slum cluster is one of the biggest in the Kalyanpuri area and has a struggling image. The support to the Congress party among slumdwellers here has become considerably weak. This has benefited us in these elections.
In the longer run, the communal fascists can be checked from channelising the frustrations of urban crisis only by seriously paying attention to the problems of democratic mobilisation of people in slums and “inner cities,” and only by giving them a radical identity. This by no means is an easy task thanks to a strong interface between big money and some sections in the impoverished slums. Nevertheless, our comrades ran a vigorous campaign with this perspective.
– Rajendra Pratholi