Bengal Polls: No Match For BJP & TMC In Money Power, Left Relies On Crowdfunding

Kolkata: With the high-voltage eight-phase West Bengal assembly elections set to kick off on Saturday, political parties are on overdrive in the last leg of campaigning.

The BJP and Trinamool Congress (TMC) have the resources to push their campaign, but parties like CPI(M) don’t have money power to match their rivals.

The CPI(M) has fielded several young and first-time candidates, who are having to depend on crowdfunding to drive their campaigns.

Pritha Taa, the CPI(M) candidate from Bardhaman Dakshin, says Left parties have always run on contributions from the masses.

“People will help us. We have always been depending on people’s contribution. It has been my party’s district-level decision that we need not resort to crowdfunding at this moment. If the situation demands later, we will start taking contributions from people. For us crowdfunding is also a medium to get connected to people,” said Pritha.

Veteran Left leader Kanti Ganguly, who is contesting from Raidighi, started his crowdfunding campaign from Tuesday. “During Amphan, I collected funds from well-wishers and sent it to Sundarban. Political canvassing as well as asking for help for the people of Sundarban is important,” said Ganguly.

“Of course, it is a genuine medium of collection. What crowdfunding means is to collect funds from people. Earlier, it used to be in cash but now it is through bank transfer. We have collected only Rs 50,000 till now. Expenditures are supposed to mount up to Rs 30-40 lakh. Collection is also an exercise in public relations. People who are socially aware will help us,” said Ganguly.

Sociologist Prasanta Ray goes back to the days when Left parties would go door-to-door for funds.

“It was also a kind of crowdfunding. But the term didn’t exist then. Also, going to people for money was not just for funds, it would also provide leaders and workers the chance to interact with the masses and get acquainted with them. But it stopped after Left parties no more depended on the common man as they had big financers backing them, since they were in power.”

Ray says this time, the Left parties have been fielding many youngsters, who have no savings of their own. So from that point of view, crowdfunding is an acceptable source of income for these first-timers.

Satarup Ghosh, candidate from Kasba in south Kolkata, said they have been doing this for a long time. “This is all funded by the people. The terminology may be new, but the process existed earlier also on a smaller scale… The only difference being that earlier it used to be offline and now it is happening online. We have also started it for the Kasba Vidhan Sabha constituency recently.

Dr Goutam Mukherjee, political science professor at Gurudas College in Kolkata, said: “It can be said that elections in India are decided by three Ms – media, mafia and money power. Noam Chomsky, philosopher who wrote ‘Manufacturing Consent’, talks about creating people’s consent through the media. Money also plays a great role. Campaigning is a very expensive affair and crowdfunding can be a viable option but in comparison to the party in power, how much is it commensurate is debatable.”