Battle for Bastar: With Mustard Oil, Onions, Congress Candidate ‘Takes On Modi’
Kawasi Lakhma, Congress candidate for Bastar (ST) Lok Sabha constituency in Chhattisgarh, hogs limelight with his innovative campaign style.
With even no formal school education, the six-time tribal MLA understands the nitty-gritty of electoral politics particularly how to connect with his voters like a seasoned modern politician.
This is manifested in his style of campaigning, which is a mix of tribal culture and politics, in Bastar.
Seventy-year-old Mr Lakhma visits village after village during his campaign by beating drums and dancing, thus attracting the attention of the villagers easily.
He invariably chooses a huge tree in the village as his venue of public meeting, resembling the ‘panch sabha’ (meeting of elderly people of village), connecting instantly with the local tribes even before speaking a word.
He carries with him a bag containing a bottle of mustard oil, one kilo of onion, and a bottle of kerosene to every public meeting in the villages to create a visual impact on the issue of price rise of essential commodities.
A bottle of mustard oil was selling at Rs 70 a decade ago, but the cost of the edible oil has now skyrocketed to Rs 200, Mr Lakhma told the gathering in a village in Bijapur district in south Bastar on Friday while brandishing a bottle of mustard oil before them.
The government has stopped giving kerosene in public distribution system shops, causing misery to the tribals, he said.
“Despite having no formal school education, Mr Lakhma understands the importance of visual impact. Hence, he raises the issues of common people with demonstration of the particular goods”, veteran scribe of Bastar N Mishra told this newspaper.
“Modi magic will not work here”, Mr Lakhma told this newspaper while campaigning in Bastar.
Interestingly, Mr Lakhma, a sitting Congress MLA from Konta in Sukma district in south Bastar, was unwilling to contest in the forthcoming LS polls.
“I had gone to look for a bride for my son, but was made a groom of the bride”, he had commented after Congress declared him candidate for Bastar by dropping the sitting party MP Deepak Baij.
He has now changed his mind and said that he was keen to go to LS to raise issues of tribals.
Former excise minister Mr Lakhma is no stranger to controversy.
His name has figured in the alleged excise scam being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
“I am tribal. We tribals never indulge in any scam”, he says like a seasoned politician.
Mr Lakhma has recently been caught on video distributing money to people in Dantewada.
BJP has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission (EC) against him in this regard.
Mr Lakhma is pitted against BJP candidate Mahesh Kashyap in Bastar, the lone LS seat which is going to polls in the first phase elections in Chhattisgarh on April 19.
