Outdated strategy keeps left out of BMC

mumbai: while sunil ghate of the gangster arun gawli''s akhil bharatiya sena romped into the brihanmumbai municipal corporation with a margin of 8,917 votes, the 34 candidates of the left parties drew a blank.
the left even lost the lone worli koliwada seat that it had clung to for decades, when manishankar kavathe of the cpi lost to ramkrishna keniof the shiv sena by 1,200 votes.
some loyalists of the cpi, cpm and shetkari kamgar party insist that the loss of a foothold in the civic corporation is not a sign of the rout of the socialist forces. they say that many of their candidates rustled up more votes this time than in previous years. however, others warn that their parties aren''t likely to retain any presence in the city unless they shed their old-fashioned ways.
mr kavathe''s rout was the biggest blow, given that the cpi veteran had won every civic election since 1957. but while mr kavathe was a close second, others fared much worse. septuagenarian suman sanzgiri, the veteran communist from bhandup who had been active in the samyukta maharashtra movement in the 1950s, came third to relative newcomers. the winner asha koparkar, a first timer from the congress, scored over sena nominee sita mukhia by 1,292 votes. ms mukhia is the sister of khimbahadur thapa, gangster and former sena corporator from the area.
vivek monteiro of centre of indian trade unions says that the party has fared better than in previous elections. ``in the last elections, the cpm notched 2,000-odd votes here. this time round, ms sanzgiri got 4,200. that is not a bad performance,'''' he says.
as for the performance of marol candidate, vandana musale, who got 1,600 votes, mr monteira says, ``last time, the cpm candidate secured 2,500 votes, but this time, the ward has been split. so one cannot really say that we''ve lost our loyal followers.''''
other leaders do not dispute this logic but are vocal in their disillusionment of the left''s representation being reduced to zero in the bmc. ``times have changed, the pattern of elections has changed too,'''' notes state secretary of the cpm prabhakar sanzgiri. ``we can no longer match the muscle and money power of other parties. most of the voters feel one candidate is as bad as the other. they vote for the party which promises them the most. we simply cannot afford to pay voters rs 500 each, so we lose out.''''
veteran janata dal member mrinal gore agrees that the left does not have the resources to fight black money that plays a big role in elections. but she adds, ``we haven''t kept up with the times and today''s youth is very distanced from our idealogies.''''
ms gore notes that the leftist chhatra bharati barely has a presence on the mumbai campus compared to the outreach of student wings of other political parties such as the national students union of india and the akhil bharatiya vidyarthi parishad. ``to an extent, we are responsible for not having reached out to the younger generation or having identified issues close to their heart,'''' she says.
election alliances also affected the image of the left parties, say old timers. meena menon of the girni kamgar sangharsh samiti, an organisation of mill workers, says that despite mumbai''s massive labour problems, the workforce has not aligned to the socialist parties because they do not see them as being effective enough to address their problems. ``this is the sena''s forte, and ever since the rise of the sena in the 1950s, the influence of the left forces has been ebbing,'''' she says.
ms menon believes that if the left wants to secure a footing on the city''s political scene, it has to have a strategy based on peoples'' real aspirations instead of theoretical ideologies.
many left leaders believe the time is right for a massive revamp. as mr monteiro notes, ``the bmc losses should be a lesson for us. we will have to address more relevant issues such as the marginalisation of the poor from the city. we will also have to work hard to ensure that the secular votes are not divided.''''