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Underdog pitches for those living on margins

JALANDHAR: In a campaign where the high-pitched rhetoric of conventional parties reigns supreme, Kashmir Singh Ghugshore of the CPM-New Democracy is the quintessential underdog, who speaks of Dalits, peasants and land rights for the poor.

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Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 17

In a campaign where the high-pitched rhetoric of conventional parties reigns supreme, Kashmir Singh Ghugshore of the CPM-New Democracy is the quintessential underdog, who speaks of Dalits, peasants and land rights for the poor.

With barely Rs 15,000 in his pocket (of which he deposited Rs 12,000 as nomination fee), Ghugshore claims that all through the campaign, he has been voicing the concerns of the marginalised, which are never take seriously by conventional politicians. While he is a political activist, his home runs on the income of his wife, a MGNERGA worker.

While many star candidates/ campaigners of various parties have been conducting road shows in swanky cars, this common man’s campaign has been backed by auto-drivers of the city, who root for him because he feels that the private taxi business is edging them out. At his road show in Mehatpur on Thursday — bikes, cycles and autos tagged along.

While Ghusghore — whose election symbol is a stool — has been sustaining his campaign with crowd funding —his Samrai village meeting saw one of the biggest gatherings, where people donated money for his campaign too. He has been visiting villages, including Dhaggar, Ravidaspura, Hardo Pharala, Bilga and Pabwan, holding crowd funding meets.

He has lost assembly elections thrice — twice from Kartarpur and once from Shahkot — but “that doesn’t deter me from raising the issues which matter” he says. Ahead of his campaign in 2007, when he contested against Chaudhary Surinder Singh, he was jailed after he held a demonstration to demand that electricity bills of poor farmers be pardoned on par with well-heeled ones.

Ghugshore says, “The landless and Dalit peasants in every village are hard pressed. Everywhere they are under pressure. Their land is under watch and where they struggle, they are attacked. We want a land ceiling of 10 acre so that the landless should get adequate land. Also, MNCs are eating up jobs of the poor. Agro-based industry should be encouraged and privatisation should be discouraged.”

“In the Mand area, land is being taken from the poor. Everywhere, agricultural land is on the wane because everyone wants shortcuts and easy money. In Pandori Natt village, toxins are giving way to cancer. The use of western machinery and pesticides is dealing a deadly blow to land. At Bilga, there have been over 10 drug overdose deaths. The issues remain the same. The governments need policies which counter these,” he adds.

His agenda for the city – “To promote agro-based industry, give land to landless peasants interested in farming and increasing produce, promote education and counter unemployment.”

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