Mobilising campaign crowd now a challenging task

Now, district secretaries of almost all parties are finding it difficult to mobilise crowd for the election campaign and when leaders visit their regions to canvass votes.

“Mobilising crowd for public meetings addressed by leaders has become the most difficult job this season and the public demand has also peaked this time,” admitted a party district secretary wishing not to be named.

With the absence of elected councillors and MLAs, district secretaries of AIADMK, DMK and AMMK are all forced to spend more to attract crowd this season. A minor relief for these poll managers is that and there are groups of political enthusiasts among the general public, who attend all the meetings addressed by prominent leaders of any party, the former MLA noted. The cost per person ranges from Rs 200 to 300 based on the area, urban or rural. Besides some of them also demand food and beverages, the source rued.

Exposing the system of mobilising crowd, a video grab of public receiving Rs 200 to attend a party rally in Sriperumbudur had also gone viral with the party functionaries pleading with the women not to display the cash given to them for attending the meeting.

The entire act is now recorded in the camera and a copy of it also reached the Election Commission authorities in Chennai.

“Mobilising crowd has been there for years and now it has become more commercialised,” Ramu Manivannan, professor and head, department of political science, Madras University said. In those days, public were not bought, but now things have changed. Almost every party across India are now mobilising crowd by inducing them with cash, alcohol and biriyani packets, the professor said.

To a query whether the diminishing crowd will result in extinction of public meetings, Manivannan said that as the numbers dwindle more commercialisation will be done to invite the crowd for rallies addressed by political leaders. During elections the demand for crowd is more but the supply is less, the political science professor noted.

“Candidates are dependent on party functionaries for their victory and crowd mobilisation is a basic factor that projects a candidate as a front runner in a poll. Due to this reason, the concept of gathering crowd had been in place for years,” said civic activist Arani C Sreenivasan of Egmore. “Who is offering what is the big question among the public and if they are convinced they attend rallies irrespective of the parties,” Sreenivasan noted.

Not only the public and voters are wooed, a few millionaire candidates in the state, including S Jagathrakshakan, AC Shanmugan and Kathir Anand had also promised cash prizes and motorcycles for party workers who excel in the campaign works.