Lost the Elections, Won as a family!

There are times when your parents put you in a situation that’s completely alien to your current lifestyle and that’s exactly what happened when my father called me up to help him during the Municipality Elections in Rajasthan. I didn’t want to go at all but I got no choice. When your family needs you, you go. So, that’s what I did. So, here’s what happened in the next 10 days during the election campaign.

Day 1 (November 6)

I reached my hometown at 5 AM. This was a special day because it marked the opening ceremony of my father’s Congress party office in our ward. It was a brilliant ceremony where a lot of prominent leaders from our city came and addressed the attendees. It went really well but I was totally clueless. I didn’t know anyone except my father and mother. I didn’t know what I was expected to do there.

After the ceremony, I spent rest of the day in the office doing nothing. I called Kapil on his phone to tell him that this is really boring. I want to come back.

Later at night, my mother told me that no matter how little you contribute here but your presence makes me feel a lot more confident. That in-turn gave me a lot of confidence and I slept really well that night.

Day 2 (November 8)

Day 2 was even more confusing because all I did is show up in the office at 8 AM and just be there while everyone else was campaigning, going door to door, or meeting people and everything they could to gain momentum in the election campaign but I wasn’t doing any of that and felt more like a dead weight.

I came back home at 8 PM that day and slept. That’ all.

Day 3 (November 9)

This was the day when my frustration reached the heights. I called up Kapil again and told him that all I want is to come back. This isn’t for me. I can’t do this. Just tell my parents that you have something very important at the office and it needs my signature so that they let me go. Seriously, it was very bad.

I wasn’t contributing much to the election campaign and I also didn’t know anyone. Everyone I met was a stranger to me. I asked my friends to accompany me in the office so that I don’t get bored but they don’t exist so..😅

Day 4 (November 10)

This was the day when I finally ‘accepted’ the fact that this is how my life is going to be for the next 6 days because the elections were going to happen on 16th of November. I told myself that 6 more days like these would make me extremely frustrated but it won’t kill me; and what doesn’t kill you makes you ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶n̶g̶e̶r̶ stronger so I started to develop interest in the campaign. I was getting to know names of people who used to visit the office; and I was getting to know the process as well.

That day, I got into the chore of organising ‘voter lists’ so that we can find out the voter details with ease.

It required me to type in 2700+ names (and other details) from a hard paper into an ‘Excel sheet’. In my ordinary life, I would consider it a taxing and very boring job but that day I got excited because I finally had something to do.

While doing this, I be-friended a couple of my colleagues (as I like to call them) and discussed things in detail.

Day 5 (November 11)

The ‘voter list’ work wasn’t going smooth because my superiors wanted something else and I created something else so I had to re-do it but I wasn’t mad. It was alright.

Since I developed interest in the election campaign, I used to hear the discussions more seriously and wanted to give my opinions but I wasn’t sure that what I was going to make sense so I restricted myself from talking much.

The next day, we had an event AKA ‘Jan Sabha’ in one of the parks where we invited some of the prominent personalities and invited everyone from the ward to attend. It also had a part where we would weigh the candidate, my mother with sweets ‘laddu’. It seems cliche but it’s very important when you’re fighting the elections.

It was good enough but we kind of knew that there was a lot more that’s needed to be done to strengthen our position in the campaign.

So, we started thinking of more options for campaigning.

Day 6,7, 8 and 9 (November 15)

For the next 3 days, we did a lot of campaigning, door-to-door meet and greets, personal convincing, and a lot more.

Seeing my father work so tirelessly at this age, and my mother managing both household chores and the campaign with all her health limitations, it was very inspiring.

At this point of time, I was so into elections that I had only one thing in my mind, ‘what can we do to win the elections?’ and I started thinking of various ideas.

So, I pitched one to my father. It was the idea of distributing ‘Election Manifestos’ to all the houses so that they know our intentions and the work that we want to do in the next 5 years to develop our ward.

He agreed and I got them ready within 12 hours. He liked it and we distributed it to each and every house in the ward.

To me, it was a really good move because none of our competitors were doing it.

On the last day of the campaign, we had another ‘Jan Sabha’ where we invited the MLA of Hanumangarh district and various other prominent leaders. A lot of people attended it and the speakers did a tremendous job in addressing the crowd. It was entertaining, impactful and followed by good snacks which everyone liked.

We ended our campaign on a very high note and everyone was quite pumped.

Election Day (November 16)

On the election day, I woke up at 5 AM and was ready with my desk and the laptop 500 metres outside the election spot to assist people in the polls. It’s a common practice that every party follows.

My mother and father were right outside the booth greeting everyone who was coming through the door. It was also a common practice that I did not know of.

They had to stand throughout the day (From 7 AM till 5 PM). Since my mother is diabetic, I was quite worried about her health because standing throughout the day and missing her medication while doing so was certainly not a very good idea so my mind was constantly thinking about it.

At the end of the day, out of 2700+ votes, 1965 got polled, and it was slightly short of what we had expected, part of it is because it started raining.

We drove cars to people’s houses to offer them a ‘to and fro’ ride so that they can comfortably poll their election. Every party does that. I just came to know about it that day.

Well, elections ended at 5 PM and with this, my job was done too.

The day for which we we all worked for months somehow felt the shortest days of all. It all passed away so quickly that I couldn’t believe it ended.

After the campaign was over, we had this little treat for all the workers at the office with a ‘thank you’ message from my father. It was a very nice gesture to end the campaign and post that I got home to my mother.

My whole body was paining but I had a smile on my face.

Later that night, my father had a lot of discussions with party workers on what could all the possible results of this election. I did not want to be a part of it because ‘speculations’ don’t interest me.

The same day, I remember talking to my mother that the way she has handled the campaign, it was nothing short of magnificent. She is not well but not even once she complained that ‘she can’t do it’. In-fact, she campaigned for weeks with a smile on her face and that was magical.

November 18 (A day before results)

A day for results, I checked the diabetes of my mother and the machine was showing an error ‘Hi or H1’. I thought the machine stopped working, and I checked thrice but every time it showed the same reading. So, I googled about the same and found out that this message shows when the diabetes level is way above the measuring level of the machine so I got very worried. We went to the nearest laboratory and we found out that the reading was ‘600’. I immediately called the Doctor and he told me to either admit her or give more dose of insulin because anything above ‘500’ is fatal.

I gave more dosage of insulin to stabilise the situation and the very next day we went to see the Doctor because he was in a different city. He changed the medication, and increased the dosage and for the next few days, I had to monitor the diabetes level at-least 3 times a day and tell the Doctor about it on phone.

The situation got under control but it left me thinking that we had not just put all our efforts, time and energy on these elections, we also put my mother’s life on these elections, and our intentions were always pure. We did not want to win these elections for making money or getting power, we genuinely wanted to develop our ward and do good work. In fact, my father has been doing a lot of social work out of his interest and he strongly believes that ‘social good’ is way more valuable than any monetary benefits.

To be honest, I got angry with my father because anything could have happened to my mother because of her delicate health situation and to me her well being is more important than anything in the world.

Judgement Day (November 19)

At 9 AM in the morning, the results were announced.

We got 444 votes and lost the elections; and the winning party got 770 votes. It was tragic. My father was deeply disappointed and so was my mother.

I was disappointed too but not that much.

As per the speculations, surveys and our calculations, we were winning but the results were completely opposite. Now, that is the reason I don’t like speculations. To us, it felt like a lot of people betrayed us but that’s how the politics is. You can never tell (or even imagine) what’s going to happen unless the results are out.

After the results were out, at night, I asked my parents to come with me to Delhi and relax a little. I told them that it’s been a very tiring stint for you since last few months so you should take some time off; and get away from this environment but they didn’t listen to me, as always.

Fun fact: Parents don’t listen to their children.

So, I came back and started working again but for the next few days, I couldn’t stop thinking about it which is why I am writing this lengthy blog post.

To end this, all I would like to say is that these elections changed me forever. It was way out of my comfort zone but I learned a lot. If we didn’t fight these elections, I wouldn’t have learned so much. So, I thank my father for choosing to fight these elections. I still remember that when we came to Hanumangarh almost 12 years ago, we had a lot of debt and no one knew us in the whole city, we didn’t even matter but today we’re among the most respected ones, all because of my father’s selfless love for social welfare. He’s a gem of a person (a little strict towards me but that’s alright :P). I am so proud of my father and my mother for all their efforts and for giving me this amazing opportunity to learn and grow.

To me, we’ve won as a family.

If you’ve made it this far, do share your thoughts in comments. Thanks!