Battles need to be won on the ground and not in war rooms. Not just in the battle, flaws in the strategies would lead to defeat in the election as well.
When I contested as a Left-backed independent candidate in the 1998 Assembly bypoll, I was summoned to the Lenin Centre, the CPM's Ernakulam district committee office, and was declared as the candidate by Comrade M M Lawrence. The party has several such practices. But this year, the Left candidate for the Thrikkakara bypoll was not announced in the party office but at an institution of a community.
As the party leaders were reduced to mere spectators during the event, it would have been disheartening for the staunch workers of the party. That's not how a candidate announcement should have been made. Even the district secretary was rendered a spectator, while the significance of the district committee office was lost in the beginning itself.
The over-enthusiastic election campaigning in the constituency was tantamount to alienating the voters and the workers in the constituency. The party workers, who were in touch with the common folks of the Thrikkakara constituency, were not the ones to reach out to the voters. A plethora of leaders from outside the constituency and who had no direct connection with the voters made a beeline for Thrikkakara. Thus denying the party workers, at the grassroots level, the opportunity to carry out traditional campaigning activities.
Even in the bypoll I had contested, leaders and workers from all districts of the state had converged at the party offices and devised strategies. But the local leaders and party workers were tasked with implementing these in the constituency. None of the leaders who came from outside made any intervention that diminished their importance in the constituency. The then election victory was the result of this.
Bringing (ousted Congress leader) K V Thomas into the Left fold also had a negative impact in the election. The sympathy wave in the Thrikkakara constituency favoured UDF candidate Uma Thomas, the wife of the deceased MLA P T Thomas. Still the votes that Uma Thomas garnered were much more than what was expected.
The victory was assured for her in this round but the voters would give a second opportunity to such candidates only on the basis of their performance as a people's representative.
The Left workers need not be disappointed. Sympathy alone would not guarantee victory every time.
(The author is a former Member of the Parliament.)
