The pains of finding the right women

It’s a mess, says a senior Congressman, wiping the sweat off his brow in the evening chill.

The civic polls are sparing none this time. Choosing women candidates for half the seats in 10 corporations going to the polls is proving tough even for big parties like the Congress, NCP, BJP and Shiv Sena.

Typically, poll nominations spell chaos for any party. There are tugs and pulls in all directions and heaps of disgruntled workers. There are rallies and remonstrations from allies unhappy at key seats being snatched away, the way the RPI-Athawale demonstrated at the BJP’s Mulund office recently to demand two seats. The protestors gave a memorandum to a bemused Sardar Tara Singh who had had no role to play in the seat allocation.

Such farces are common in poll season. This time, there is mayhem. Every party is in the same soup: where to get so many women candidates from? With sitting corporators and party workers feverishly lobbying for wives, sisters and daughters, the discontent quotient is certain to be several notches higher.

Leading a smaller party, Raj Thackeray has it tougher. He has come out with an ingenious strategy to overcome this limitation. He tests an applicant’s understanding of corporation rules and functions in a written test and interviews him to assess his personality. He has found Std II-pass partymen coming out with flying colours.

Thackeray’s methodology is uncharacteristically clinical for his party’s slam-damn kind of approach, but it makes sense in this confused political climate. He gets to pick from the broadest base possible and, supposedly, on merit. But the exigencies of ‘winnability’ politics can make nonsense of the best ideas. In a Pune ward, he has chosen a Kunbi for a reserved seat and his wife for an open seat in the same ward.

The BJP has declared its decision to steer clear of relatives for women’s seats. So has the Congress in Mumbai. But they have had to give in at many places. In fact, 20% of Congress nominations in Pune have gone to relatives of either sex. Unlike the BJP, the Congress does not have too many educated women workers in the urban areas and those that are there are not excited about fighting a local election.

Apart from having to keep everyone happy, parties are worried about the impact of their choices at the hustings. Civic polls being mainly about local issues, the candidate is more important than the party. A weak candidate can upset the apple cart.

Parties call this the riskiest election ever. Nobody wants to bet on the outcome. The only thing they can do when unsure of their own candidate is to plot to divert attention from the rival party. So, be prepared for negative campaigning, free trips to hill stations for voters on polling day and, perhaps, some slip-ups on voter names.

One thing is certain. It will be an eclectic bunch enlivening corporation halls from next month. Women always make their space more interesting.