Over the last three weeks, Congress-NCP candidate Sanjay Nirupam and Shiv Sena-BJP candidate Gajanan Kirtikar have been showcasing two styles of campaigning. While Mr. Nirupam’s campaign has been four-hour padayatras daily, Mr. Kritikar has been conducting road shows and public meetings.
“Our idea is to cover the constituency effectively and hence we chose a combination of padayatras, road shows, and meetings,” George Abraham, Mr. Nirupam’s key strategist said. Mr. Nirupam’s daily schedule includes a gruelling four-hour campaign on foot in the morning and road shows in the evening, followed by two public meetings at night.
He said they choose places depending on accessibility. “We organise padayatras through slums as they have narrow lanes and all tenements are on the ground floor; this allows us to interact with locals. Road shows are being conducted in areas with housing societies and meetings are being held with key voter groups such as fisherfolk, first-time voters, etc.”
Ameet Satam
Simultaneously, Mr. Abraham said, they are meeting several non-BJP groups such as trade unions, and also campaigning in areas such as Motilal Nagar that still have a base of the socialist parties.
The Sena-BJP combine is relying on its cadre to deliver the votes while Mr. Kirtikar conducts road shows and public meetings. “Road shows don’t get you votes. It is an effective way of canvassing the entire constituency and registering the presence of the party and the candidate. Votes come from door-to-door campaigning and small localised meetings, which are being conducted by the cadre of both parties,” Anil Parab, MLC and chief strategist of Mr. Kirtikar, said.
Anil Parab
He said Mr. Kirtikar does not need to conduct padayatras because he has the backing of the combined machinery of the BJP and the Sena, which includes six MLAs from the constituency.
Ameet Satam, BJP MLA from Andheri (West), who is the party’s in-charge for the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha constituency, said the MLAs are also considering this as a litmus test. “In barely a couple of months we will have the State elections. We have told each corporator that their performance will be judged on the basis of votes polled from their respective wards,” he said.
Mr. Parab said a challenge they tackled early in the campaigning was to communicate to their cadre about the reasons why they joined hands with the BJP after over four years of acrimony. “As soon as the alliance was forged we conducted internal meetings in all six Assembly seats to explain why the decision was taken. Once the candidature was formally announced, we held a joint meeting of cadre of both parties,” he said.
Mr. Satam said the entire campaign was planned by both parties jointly so that there would be no overlap. For the Sena-BJP, the challenge is to retain their respective vote banks.
Mr. Abraham said the aim of the Congress is to retain their core voters and get a section of the extra voters who turned up last time. “If you analyse the Congress’s performance in the last two elections, there is not a lot of difference in our vote share. It’s just that last time, the turnout was much higher and the extra votes went to the BJP-Sena. Last time, there was hope, but this time, there is disappointment, which we need to cash in on,” he said.