Raghunandan TR Diary: Why we lost in Karnataka
A diary from the wall of Raghunandan TR, former Joint Secretary at Govt of India.
Now to attempt to answer the question, why we lost.
There are caveats here. Everybody has their immutable reasons for our loss, from members of our team who canvassed tirelessly for days on end, often taking sabbaticals from work, to Facebook warriors who are for or against us. All of these have weight, just as my views too have some value, coming as it does from my vantage position as an election agent. But none of our views, in exclusion of other views, may provide a complete picture.
So in my view, we lost for the following reasons:
(A) Unfamiliarity with the AAP:
When we were planning our campaign, a few months back, we were preparing ourselves to answer trenchant criticism of Arvind Kejriwal. We planned to do this because we felt that he had received so much of negative publicity for his actions through the press, that people might have prejudiced views about him. Our field experience showed that that apprehension was completely wrong. Hardly anybody criticized Kejriwal, indeed, if at all, they had a vaguely good impression of him. Most people were ignorant of him. They did not know of the AAP, nor of Kejriwal. That meant that the image of the party had to be built entirely around Renuka, which was not a bad thing in itself. Even so, time was very short to ground the image of a new entity named AAP, as a viable alternative in the minds of the people.
(B) Inability to convince people with our answer to the question; How effective an MLA can you be?
Once we got into the stride of the campaign through door to door visits, we began to engage with voters and influencers of the vote. We encountered very little resistance from the campaigners of other parties; in fact, they were not on the ground at all. People absorbed our spiel regarding Delhi very well; we used flip charts and sat down with voters and voter groups for long hours. They were affectionate towards Renuka as she began to get recognition. However, they really needed to know how effective the AAP could be in the government. We gave the broad answer that the AAP would act as an honest intermediary and an effective opposition. But that was counter productive. So we quickly switched to saying that Renuka was well known in Karnataka and that she was well regarded by both Siddaramaiah and Deve Gowda, so she could get work done very well through the government. This approach did seem effective and probably won us votes in the more affluent areas, but any positive feelings towards us were eroded for other reasons, as enunciated below.
(C) We could not convince people with our counter to the vote splitting argument:
About ten days before the elections, aseries of whatsapp messages began to go viral among the more affluent, and those belonging to minority communities, that they must not split the ‘secular’ vote. Some of the facts quoted in these messages were erroneous, but scare people, they did. We took pains to convince people that we would defend secularism with our lives, sadly, many people did not believe us. Towards the end of the campaign, the push back on this count was brutal. One comment on Renuka’s facebook page summed it up; an individual said that they did not want an ‘idli sambar’ person to come and split the vote. So we were seen as outsiders, by dint of our names. Identity worked against us, like it does for people of all walks of life.
(D) Our inability to handle the corruption and intimidation in the last one week of the campaign.
Our build up was encouraging by the time the elections were announced, we had already done two rounds of door to door campaigning. People recognized us, Renuka was developing a great charisma and connect with the voters. However, for any election campaign to have impact, there must be a cadre on the ground. We had plenty of volunteers and enthusiastic support, but that does not substitute for a cadre. Because we lacked a cadre, all those gains were eroded in the last week before the voting. The BJP, Congress and JDS are pros in handling the legally permitted and illegal activities that form part of a campaign. The local teams of these parties have people who are community leaders; meaning paternalistic men and women, who hide behind their benign and affable exteriors, the capability to turn into dangerous bullies. Their money distribution system swung smoothly into action.
We passed groups of people at night, who were clearly engaging in the distribution of money. Our team members witnessed evidence of the impounding of voter ID cards, but we did not have an effective counter to this strategy. Other parties counter it by illegitimate means – by double crossing and competitive bribing. We could only watch helplessly, or complain to officials, or make the weak argument that people could take money from all sides, but still vote for us.
Some of the more courageous of us did walk into the slums late at night. Renuka went several times, including till 9 PM on the last day before the campaign ended, to speak to people that they need not fear anybody; they could vote for us, the vote is entirely secret. But the virus of fear had infected them. People averted their eyes. It was an ominous portend of things to come.
(E) Capacity to manage voting day was woefully inadequate:
We recognized this as an Achilles heel early enough, and began to reach out to people interested in volunteering as booth level agent. Every party can appoint one booth level agent each per booth, provided that that agent is a voter in that booth. We reached out to a database of more than 250 volunteers and enthusiastic supporters that we contacted during the campaign. I kept time aside for training programmes to train these volunteers for booth level responsibilities. We ended up with nobody. Zero.
Yogendra Yadav once remarked in a discussion that I attended, that 20 percent of voters decide for whom they vote, as they walk to the polling booth. In such circumstances, visible presence at the booth on the last day is imperative. We did not have anybody inside any booth.
So all we could do was to have 70 plus teams at help-desks, which were located at each one of the polling booth locations, but at a distance of 200 meters away from it. These volunteers were not authorized to enter the booths. Had we had booth level volunteers, we might have been able to check the rampant impersonation that we heard had happened, particularly in the last hour of polling.
So that’s it. I might have missed out on many details, but this is what I feel, in brief.
Some people might criticize us as being under-prepared, but there is a chicken and egg problem here. What comes first? A cadre or an election? Even as I recognize the validity of the ‘being under-prepared’ argument, I also recognize that cadre development is catalyzed by the election process. Therefore, the disappointment at doing badly at the election has to be overcome with the understanding that we now have the seed crystals of a cadre, in the form of our wonderful volunteers and supporters in and outside Shanthinagar.
We will continue working on the ground. And hopefully, bounce back. The affection that we saw on the ground is not something that one can forget, even if it did not translate into votes. The energy that one experienced, coming from idealistic people, young and old, is indescribable. This is a movement. It cannot be quelled.
Read More: The vote splitting argument
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