Why voters reject clean candidates: No Meera Sanyals, no Arun Bhatias

By Abhay Vaidya During the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Meera Sanyal, the then country head of ABN Amro Bank, famously went on leave to contest the elections as an Independent candidate from the South Mumbai constituency. Bad governance in Mumbai was what bothered Sanyal and this common sentiment had resulted in intense public resentment against politicians after the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. [caption id=“attachment_219056” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Image: arunbhatiaelect.com”]  [/caption] Sanyal had everything going for her: she was an achiever, well-educated, clean, and admirably wanted to enter public life and not just engage in endless drawing room debates. Her appeal for votes was primarily to professionals, the well-heeled and well-educated from the South Mumbai constituency which encompassed such localities as Worli, Byculla, Malabar Hill and Colaba. Sanyal hogged the limelight and received ample media publicity, all of which was positive. And yet, she got barely 10,157 votes (1.58 percent) out of the total 6.41 lakh polled. The Bahujan Samaj Party candidate got 23,000 more votes than Sanyal and ahead of him were Shiv Sena’s Mohan Rawale, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s Bala Nandgaonkar and Congress’s Milind Deora who won with 2.72 lakh votes. The other high profile, clean and “middle class” candidate in the same elections was the maverick ex-bureaucrat Arun Bhatia from Pune. Bhatia’s credentials were stronger than Sanyal’s due to his public image as a no-nonsense ex-IAS bureaucrat who knew the system inside out. The middle class in Pune loved Bhatia. Having lost in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, Bhatia was contesting once again with better preparation. And yet, like Sanyal, he was at the bottom with 30,000 votes, superseded by businessman DS Kulkarni from the BSP, the MNS, BJP and Congress’s Suresh Kalmadi who won with 2.79 lakh votes. The story of the Sanyals and Bhatias stood repeated in the 2012 civic elections in Maharashtra, where voters in Mumbai and Pune rejected Independents who came with all the attributes of good candidates. Mumbai-227, formed by a high-profile group of conscientious citizens, fielded more than 50 candidates with a mission statement that emphasised transparency and accountability in governance. In Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, the Nagrik Sanghatanas fielded 30 candidates, all of whom lost, most notably, sitting corporator and Right to Information activist Maruti Bhapkar in Pimpri-Chinchwad. While the only Independent elected in Pune was rebel NCP corporator Ashwini Kadam, in Mumbai, it was mostly party rebels who were largely among the 15 Independents who were elected. Where did the Independents fielded by citizens’ groups go wrong, just as, where did Sanyal and Bhatia go wrong? The fact is that barring exceptions, all of them fall in the category of “part-time” politicians. The Sanyals and Bhatias surface only during the time of elections, and some, rather ambitiously, contest nothing less than the Lok Sabha elections. Most of the Independents who contested the 2012 civic polls with endorsement from citizens’ groups, had no track record of day-to-day work in their civic wards, unlike candidates from political parties. They lacked credibility on this front and were rejected outright by the voters. Although citizens’ groups have blamed money, muscle power and voter apathy for their defeat, that’s not entirely correct. While these elements did play a role, the fact is that even in their constituency of middle class voters, these ‘clean’ candidates had done little in the last five years in terms of serving as an effective interface between citizens and the civic/government machinery. A record 90 new faces were elected to the Pune Municipal Corporation, mostly on some party ticket or the other. While the MNS success is entirely credited to the charisma of party founder Raj Thackeray, many of the first-time corporators belong to various parties or are related to politicians. Such is the paradox of Indian politics that people with a clean image and non-political background like Sanyal and Bhatia can enter the otherwise tainted political system essentially with political backing - as was done by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Jairam Ramesh, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Kapil Sibal or Arun Shourie. Or else, it’s a long and lonely struggle without guarantee of electoral victory and where leave from a high profile job during elections won’t be enough. What matters to the voting public is that their work gets done and the local corporator steps in whenever they are in difficulty. If someone is able to assure this, then it does not matter whether he is corrupt or has a strong criminal background. Those like Sanyal and Bhatia who dream of winning on the strength of middle class votes will need to work in the constituency round the year, starting with ensuring that every family has its registered voters. This is where you need a strong army of party workers and volunteers who will assist you in your work. Simply surfacing at the time of elections, berating politicians and promising alternatives won’t be enough to win votes.