Cash-strapped Aam Admi Party relies on the common touch

Choice of veteran social activist Medha Patkar as a candidate in Mumbai reflects anti-corruption party's strategy to counter the deep pockets of its bigger, established rivals.

Supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party candidate Medha Patkar stage a two-wheeler rally in Mumbai on April 14. Punit Paranjpe / AFP

MUMBAI // The office of the Aam Aadmi Party in the suburb of Powai is, true to its party’s fierce commitment to modesty, a ramshackle affair. It occupies two tiny rooms above a grocery store and can only reached by a precarious ladder. In the afternoon, the rooms get so hot that Shenbagam Pillai, a party volunteer, prefers to sit on the pavement outside.

Mr Pillai, an electrician who retired 15 years ago, said he had never voted in an election in his 73 years. “I just never found any party that convinced me of its good will,” he said.

“But this is a new party. There’s some excitement and some idealism about it.”

Born out of an anti-corruption movement a year and a half ago, the Aam Aadmi Party stirred up enough support among Delhi’s voters to win 28 out of the 70 seats in the capital’s legislature last December.

The party even formed the local government in Delhi for a brief period before its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, resigned, claiming that the bigger parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), were obstructing his government’s work.

But in contesting more than 400 out of the 543 seats in the ongoing national election, the Aam Aadmi Party has expanded its ambitions. Mr Kejriwal himself is contesting in Varanasi against Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and, according to opinion polls, the front runner.

The challenge is a steep one. The Aam Aadmi Party has meager resources, and its profile is lower outside Delhi. But the party made a wise choice for its candidate in Mr Pillai’s constituency: Medha Patkar, 59, a renowned activist and social worker who is standing for election for the first time.

“Everybody knows her in these parts,” Mr Pillai said with some pride. “The problem is the party itself. It’s too new, so people aren’t sure if they can trust it.”

Ms Patkar is not as visible as her rivals in the tiny streets of Govandi, a poorer neighbourhood that also falls in the Mumbai North East constituency. There are large banners for the BJP, but there is virtually no sign of the Aam Aadmi Party. Street advertising is expensive, particularly on the party’s tight budget.

But at a roadside market that sells frocks, bags and cheap sunglasses, many people demonstrated a sharp grasp of the party’s platform and of Ms Patkar’s credentials.

“I know how hard she worked on the issue of the Narmada Dam,” said Farida Sayed, a shopper with two young children in tow.

Ms Patkar has spent decades leading a still-simmering campaign against a dam on the Narmada river in Gujarat that would force thousands of villagers to relocate and that she says would cause enormous environmental harm.

“She wasn’t getting anything out of that work, but she did it anyway,” Ms Sayed said.

“Did Medha tai come to your neighbourhood?” an adjacent shopkeeper asked, using the Marathi word for “elder sister”.

“She did,” Ms Sayed said. She lives in a slum on the eastern periphery of Govandi, and she said that Ms Patkar spent several hours in the locality during her campaign.

“She’s a good lady,” the shopkeeper said.

Voters such as Ms Sayed are the Aam Aadmi Party’s best bet, said Leena Joshi, a professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and an acquaintance of Ms Patkar.

“In some parts of this constituency, 78 per cent of the people live in slums,” she said. “They have no civic amenities at all. They need a strong representative.”

The middle classes in areas like Powai, frustrated by governmental corruption, may also buy in to the party’s message, just as they did in Delhi, she said.

“But it is tough work,” Ms Joshi said. “For instance, even though Medha comes across as a transparent person and communicates well, I’m not sure how much that will matter in a parliamentary election. Maybe it helps more at the ward level, when a voter sees his ward councillor frequently.”

She also felt that middle-class voters might be disappointed by Mr Kejriwal’s abrupt resignation as the chief minister of Delhi.

“That hurt the party, I think. There’s a sense that he let people down,” Ms Joshi said. “And it’s easy for the media to play on things like that and make him out to be a ridiculous figure. So while strong candidates like Medha benefit the party, I’m not sure the party always benefits them in turn.”

Across the country – and even across Mumbai – the Aam Aadmi Party has become a home for candidates with contradictory politics, making its stand on issues confusing.

While Ms Patkar has strong socialist roots, for instance, the party’s candidate in Mumbai South is Meera Sanyal, a former banker with more neoliberal stances on economic policy.

“So if they both get elected to parliament, what happens when an issue about privatisation of a public good comes up?” said Sahil Raj, a 43-year-old stockbroker who works out of his flat in Powai. “Will the party not have a stance on this at all? Will each of them just vote according to what she thinks is right?”

Then Mr Raj paused. “Come to think of it, that isn’t a bad idea at all.”