He has been contesting elections — from municipal to Lok Sabha polls — for the past 22 years, but Ajay Pali, 45, whom people from Kawardha town in Chhattisgarh’s Kabirdham district call Baba, is giving it his best shot — again.
Having lived and grown up in this sleepy town along the Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh border, Mr. Pali has never won an election, and has been affiliated to a party only once. But he’s preparing to contest the 2023 Assembly poll from the Kawardha seat as an Independent candidate.
His main message is that “the poor too have a voice”, and he’d like to have his heard. On Friday, he broke two thekuas, the Chhattisgarhi word for earthen piggy banks, in which he drops a part of his daily income, for poll expenses. The first expense is the form that he plans to fill and submit on October 16.
His electoral interest started from a nagar palika election in 2001 and has seen him contesting the Lok Sabha poll from Rajnandgaon too. In 2018, Mr. Pali had contested as a Shiv Sena [then undivided] candidate from the same high-profile Assembly constituency. It is currently represented by senior State Minister Mohammad Akbar of the Congress, and once sent former Chief Minister Raman Singh of the BJP to the Assembly. It’s also Mr. Singh’s hometown.
Undeterred by defeat
The 450-odd votes that he managed to get five years ago do not paint an optimistic picture, but Mr. Pali remains undeterred. “Whether it is the BJP or the Congress, the State government or the Centre, they are not serious about poor people like me. So, the message I want to give is that one can fight with limited resources, and I hope more people come forward to contest the 90 seats in the State,” he says.
He makes around ₹250 a day by selling samosas at ₹10 per plate near the Kotwali police station. Here, many cases have been registered against Lokesh Srivas, in the news recently as the accused in the ₹25-crore heist at a jewellery shop in Delhi’s Jangpura.
“The late Ajit Jogi [the State’s first Chief Minister] was my inspiration. I really liked what he used to do for the people and I wanted to become like him. Somebody suggested that fighting elections was one way, and I filed my nomination,” says Mr. Pali, a father of four, who has studied till Class IV.
The 2018 sojourn, when he was approached by the local unit of the Shiv Sena, was a sour experience. “It’s not as if Uddhav Thackeray came to campaign for me. I was hoping to get funds, but that didn’t happen either, and I had to borrow money,” he says.
Having a business where many a customer comes to his cart to relish samosas served with a side of chutney and some fried chillies is a good publicity channel in itself. Some media coverage he received the last time will also help, he says.
While the BJP has fielded Vijay Sharma, who is an accused in a 2021 communal riot case, the Congress is yet to announce a single candidate in Chhattisgarh, including Kawardha. Mr. Pali identifies traffic near the town’s main market as the main poll issue, but repeats that the larger point is to ensure that politicians don’t mock the poor and fulfil their promises.
‘Unfulfilled promises’
“We were told by Raman Singh that a train line will come; it never did. Everyone was to receive ₹15 lakh according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but I haven’t received a single penny. The houses under the PM Awas Yojana are smaller than the toilets the politicians have in their homes. These things have to stop and I am doing my bit,” Mr. Pali says.
