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Sunday, May 02, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

Candidate Watch

'Jyotirmoyee Sidkar, CPI(M) candidate, Krishnagar Lok Sabha consituency'

The leaflet asking for a vote for Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, the CPI (M) candidate for West Bengal's Krishnagar Lok Sabha constituency, carries in one corner a mug shot of her, one of the two gold medals for middle-distance running she had won at the 1998 Asian Games hanging from her neck. India's most successful athlete in recent times, and a Padma Shree awardee in 2003, Ms. Sikdar probably doesn't really need an introduction to the local sports buff, but there is a detailed account of her record-breaking performances on the track and field. Juxtaposed is an exhortation to the electorate for support for a race of a very different kind, to be run on May 10 when her constituency — along with the others in West Bengal — goes to the polls.

Thirty-four-year-old Ms. Sikdar was off the starting-blocks early — even before her candidature was officially announced — to get a headstart on her campaign. Since then, she has been racing from one corner to the other of her constituency, which adjoins the border with Bangladesh. "Those years of vigorous training in the field are now serving me well as I take on the strains of electioneering," she says. With tears in his eyes, her two-year-old son reluctantly lets go of her, tugging at her sari, as Ms. Sikdar boards the Tata Sumo that will be taking her to a meeting of party workers in nearby Chapra, the first of several she will be addressing in the course of the day. "On an average I have been addressing 20 such meetings a day for the past few weeks," she says. It is only 7.00 a.m.

At a time when personalities from the world of films and sports are entering the political firmament, Ms. Sikdar's candidature has come as no surprise. She made her debut, albeit unsuccessfully, three years after her glittering showing at the Bangkok Asian Games, as a candidate for the Ranaghat Assembly seat. "I have had the odd setback in athletics too, but bounced back to win the next race. Success, I have learnt, does not come easy. So it is in politics also. They say I am pitted against a heavyweight [the sitting MP, Satyabrata Mukherjee of the BJP who is also the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry]. But I am not daunted," she says, almost defiantly.

"I might be one of the few sportspersons who has ventured into politics in West Bengal but my involvement in politics has a long history," Ms. Sikdar points out. She recalls the days when, "I, then a class V student, had accompanied my father who belonged to the CPI to Kolkata to attend a public rally being addressed by Jyoti Basu at the Brigade Parade Grounds." She did not allow politics to interfere with her career in sports, "but that never meant I was not interested in politics." The middle distance star got her first break when she was approached by senior party leaders to contest the Ranaghat Assembly seat." She gave up her job as Sports Officer with the Eastern Railway in 2001 to contest the seat but lost "due to weakness in the party organisation."

Ms. Sikdar, who still occasionally visits the stadium "to keep myself physically fit'' has, not surprisingly, a sports-oriented agenda as a Lok Sabha candidate. "I know how important access to the right sporting facilities and training is to the aspiring athlete. It is time development in sports was paid greater attention. I, as a political figure, intend to raise such issues at the right fora and, by doing so, help tap the pool of sporting talent in our country," she says.

- Marcus Dam

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