Door-to-door is how it should be
HIS has been one of those rags-to-riches stories. Born on August 18, 1958 to a poor Army soldier in Delhi, Surendra Srivastava today is a corporate executive by training, in public service by choice, and a democrat by conviction. His has been a remarkable journey from clerk to the president of The Great Eastern India Shipping Company, a corporate giant.
After his schooling from a Colaba municipal school, Srivastava did his B.Com (Hons) and LLB while attending morning and evening college. He had to juggle studies and work as a clerk in The Great Eastern India Shipping Company because he had the responsibility of his family on his shoulders.
Deeply influenced by the work of Dr Jayprakash Narayan and his spartan way of life, Srivastava, after reaching the peak of his career, quit as president of the company he had joined 37 years before as a clerk, and decided to devote the rest of his life to social work. He founded the Maharashtra chapter of the Lok Satta Andolan and is today the General Secretary of the Lok Satta Party.
He married Ruchira Verma in 1987, who now looks after the membership of the party. They have one daughter, Ananya, who will be graduating this year from the Purdue University in USA.
SURENDRA SRIVASTAVA talked to PRASHANT HAMINE about civic elections, citizens’ initiatives and electoral reforms.
In these civic elections, citizens initiatives like Mumbai 227 are coming up as an alternative before the people. How do you look at them?
For the first time in India and in Mumbai what is happening is that due to bad politics and bad governance that is prevailing, these groups are now adding a whole new dimension to the body politic.
Is this a new concept in our country? Do you think it will strike roots in our democratic set up?
The concept is not new. It was there in the 2007 civic elections. It is not the question of the system. For a large kind of change to take place, it will not happen without proper organization and a deep understanding of our system
But most of these citizens initiatives are struggling to meet election expenses. Do you think state funding of elections is the answer?
The citizens’ candidates may not be able to do the kind of election campaigning like bringing in hired volunteers, paid news and so on. So they are into door-to-door campaigning. They are not holding huge public rallies. Ultimately it is the personal contacts that matter the most. In this sense they are far superior as compared to candi-dates from recognized political parties.
State Funding of elections is not the answer. All the parties tend to use muscle and money power to buy votes. It is black money. As a citizen candidate with your door to door campaigning you can do campaigning well within your resources. After all it is the question of leadership.
The State Election Commission has set poll expenditure limits. Do you think they are reasonable?
The election expenditure ceiling set by the State Election Commission is very reasonable one. Our Lok Satta Party candidates are managing their election expenditures well within the limit of Rs 2 lakhs. We are not holding any rallies. Rallies create a feel good atmosphere, but does that really translate into votes.
The civic election campaigning is being taken over by issues like availability of play grounds for rallies?
The tragedy of our politicians is that they do not have any issues. The real issues have been sidelined. They do not have any idea of governance to debate. They are raising issues which are not connected with the people like providing clean drinking water, participatory governance, primary health care centres, municipal schools. These major political parties have nothing to offer. They do not want to deliver what is required by the people. Hence they are raising immature issues like holding rallies at Shivaji Park. Why do they want to hold rallies at public parks and not go for door-to-door campaigning? It is nothing but show of money and muscle power strength.
Most of the candidates put up by political parties appear to be greenhorns and fumble at public debates. Do you think that candidates ought to have minimum educational qualifications to contest elections?
We cannot set criteria for minimum educational qualification. There is a desperate need for educating the candidates. We at Lok Satta Party have held orientation programmes for our candidates. They know what their party’s agenda is and about its stand on issues. Candidates ought to know about civic laws, the party agenda and local issues.
In civic elections, money power is used to buy votes and lure voters. What do you have to say about this trend?
Voters are being lured by distri-bution of sarees, liquor and cash. All this money is not accounted for. In the slums, it is the slumlord who controls the poor by threatening them.
What is the solution then to this problem?
The Nagar Raj Bill and the 74th Constitution Amendment do envisage decentralization and empowering the local ward committees. The Advance Local Management committees are informal in nature. They need to have legal force which will make them a part of the structure in the ward. In Mumbai what is needed is to set up 227 ward committees and 9,000 area sabhas. These ward committees can do lot of improvement work.
According to you what should be the real issues for this civic elections?
Well everybody knows about the issues. Roads, clean drinking water, sanitation, corruption is already known to everyone. What people want to know is how do we solve them? How to improve the situation? We at Lok Satta Party have given 10 clear guarantees to the people on what we intend to do in terms of primary health care, schools. Today political parties are merely indulging in blame game. Unfortunately we do not have a leader who has a vision for the city of Mumbai.
The Mayor today is merely a ceremonial head, the administration, in a way, is controlled by the state government. The Mayor-in-Council too was hastily wound up.
What is needed is a directly elected mayor who can govern. Mayor-in-Council was not an bad idea after all. But in one year you cannot judge the instrument. It was like having a Chief Minister. Hence we want directly elected mayor and not a mayor who is later elected by the corporator’s. In Tokyo and in New York you have directly elected mayors.
The problem with the state government and politicians is that they want to treat Mumbai as a Holy Cow. In front of the 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission we had argued for a directly elected mayor who can take care of the issues facing the city. The Chief Minister does not have time to address the issues of Mumbai.
The demand for introducing Right To Reject candidates or No Vote is growing. What is your view on it?
To some extent I feel that Right To Reject or No Vote will put pressure on political parties to field better candidates. It is very workable idea.