Kharagpur (WB), Apr 20 (PTI) Beyond the glitz and spectacle of eye-catching campaign drives mounted by candidates of the TMC and BJP in the high-profile constituency of Kharagpur Sadar, a man of quiet bearing — almost diffident in temperament — rides his bicycle through the town’s winding lanes, carrying out his door-to-door voter outreach ahead of the West Bengal state polls.
For five hours each day, he keeps to this schedule, fitting it in between his daily chores, including trips to the local market for household essentials, and the public meetings he addresses.
Meet 60-year-old Madhusudan Roy, the CPI(M) candidate for Kharagpur Sadar: a whole-time party worker who, for the past 25 years, has steadfastly delivered ‘Ganashakti’, the party’s mouthpiece, to its subscribers across the region every morning.
The party’s ‘paperwallah’ also happens to be the organisation’s area committee secretary and is a member of CPI(M)’s Paschim Medinipur district committee.
Roy’s candidate affidavit before the Election Commission states he has Rs 13,000 cash in hand and movable assets worth a little over Rs 7.5 lakh. A bachelor, Roy doesn’t own a property, lives with his two younger brothers and has for means of transport, his bicycle.
“The total budget for my election campaign doesn’t exceed Rs 7 lakh, which is less than the budget of just the party flags that the TMC and BJP have put up in Kharagpur, and I am not even talking about the money they spent behind their banners, festoons, candidate cutouts, posters, vehicle cost for road shows, massive public meetings and so on,” Roy said.
How does Roy then hope to counter the might of money and muscle deployed by his political rivals in this railway hub where issues of pollution, civic infrastructure woes, lack of amenities like drinking water and electricity in significant pockets, get shrouded by the pomp and show of the frontrunners? “The response of people, especially the youth, is my biggest capital for the elections,” Roy said, claiming that the people’s disgust with the TMC-BJP binary has nudged the Left in Kharagpur to a position where it is now a force to reckon with.
Kharagpur Sadar has never really been a red bastion, not at least in the recent past. The last time CPI(M) fought the seat on its own was in 2011, when it ended up runners-up, bagging a little over 43,000 votes.
This time, Roy is up against TMC’s Pradip Sarkar — who is looking to repeat his 2019 bypoll performance, when he secured nearly 73,000 votes to win the seat only to be dislodged by the BJP in 2021 — and BJP’s former state president Dilip Ghosh, who has remained both MLA and MP from the area in 2016 and 2019, respectively.
“Initially, none of them took me seriously. But the scenario changed after they realised that I had started gaining acceptance among people through a sheer word-of-mouth campaign. The police offered me security, but I have politely turned it down. How can they cover me when all I have is a bicycle to move around in?” Roy said with a sheepish grin.
Roy maintained that his personal connect with voters was more effective than holding big shows and rallies.
“I met an elderly woman diagnosed with a terminal disease the other day who told me she would do one good deed before bidding goodbye to this world, and that is to vote for me. I was choked with emotion,” Roy said.
In the Subhaspally area of Kharagpur town, Madhusudan, son of a railway employee and Rabindra Sangeet teacher, was greeted with endearment calls of ‘Madhu’ and ‘Madhuda’ by smiling residents, who he reached out to for votes at their homes or at their shops and establishments.
“I can’t even directly tell them to vote for me. It’s because I am shy. I just tell them to decide by judging what they see around them,” he said, visibly uncomfortable before a camera when asked to oblige for a picture.
He does hand them over a card, though, spelling out which button to press on the EVM and a printed brochure, an abridged version of the party’s poll manifesto promises and demands.
Roy said he wakes up every morning at 6 am, takes out his bicycle to ferry the party mouthpiece to 46 households under his domain, returns home and leaves again on his pushbike at 10 for campaigns through the town’s serpentine lanes, often all by himself and sometimes with his comrades around him.
Roy’s supporters from the area said his efforts in getting a group of red volunteers going during the rough Covid years won people’s hearts.
“From arranging oxygen cylinders to sanitising houses, from moving patients to hospitals and even cremating bodies when family members weren’t around to accompany them in their final journey, Madhuda did it all,” said Debojyoti Ghosh, a DYFI worker accompanying Roy in his campaign.
“The true idea behind having MLAs and MPs in a parliamentary democracy is to have people’s representatives, meaning those who rise from among the people through mass movements and who have a deep connection with the people. Madhusudan Roy fits that bill perfectly,” said Md Salim, CPI(M) West Bengal secretary, justifying the candidate’s nomination.
Asked whether pitching a candidate like Roy amid the resources flaunted by the frontrunners in the poll race makes the CPI(M) more keen on political messaging and less serious about victory, Salim said, “Elections are about political messages and not about the number of flags a party puts on display. Of late, polls have become a political circus where clowns are pushed to the forefront. But after a point, that leads to mass fatigue since people’s issues get pushed to the back burner, as there are no true representatives to voice them in the legislature.” Responding to what keeps him ticking in current times when the Left is all but obliterated from West Bengal in terms of representation in the assembly and Parliament, Roy said, “I joined politics from an ideological urge, and that’s what keeps me going. I don’t care if I win or lose. I will keep doing what I do best: stay connected with people.” “And when the time comes for me to leave this world, all I want is a red flag to cover my body,” he said, betraying an emotion. PTI SMY ACD
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