In an arena contested by “Rajas,” the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is making its debut this time in the high profile parliamentary constituency of Mandi, in Himachal Pradesh. Senior CPI(M) leader and State secretariat member. Onkar Shad is the party nominee from Mandi. He will be taking on the candidates of the Congress and the BJP, royals from Rampur and Kullu states of this constituency. Dr. Shad, a Ph.D. in Botany gave up an illustrious academic career to join the Left student movement during his college days in Rampur. “Long ago I made up my mind to challenge the rule of Rajas and to work among the backward farmers,” says Dr. Shad who has finished campaigning in the tribal belt.
He says that the people, when offered an alternative to the Congress and the BJP, are responsive; but they do not seem to be aware of any options other than the “Rajas.”
The hill State has a bipolar polity and the Left is considered part of a bigger secular coalition against the BJP, he says. “The biggest problem we are facing in the villages is to make people understand that there is a third alternative and its possibilities of becoming a part of the power sharing process at the centre,” says Dr. Shad.
“Raja Sahib [Virbhadra Singh of the Congress] has told us to either vote for him or the BJP, but never to the CPI(M) or any third force. Instead throw your votes into the Sutlej,” Dr. Shad quotes villagers in the Sutlej basin as saying.
According to them, the BJP nominee Maheshwar Singh, who belongs to the former Kullu royal family, also says the vote should remain with the royals, whether the BJP or the Congress, but not go to the third front.
Some of the villages in the area are so backward that their residents cannot even conceive that someone other than a royal can be elected to Parliament, says the Left leader. “Sometimes it appears that they have been deliberately kept people backward so that the status quo should not be disturbed,” he says.
The villagers are quite willing to discuss unemployment, price rise, lack of roads, poor health and education facilities and the need for change, but fear incurring the wrath of the Rajas, who they see as the incarnations of local “devtas.”
(Source: The Hindu)
