From where does the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) get its campaigners in Goa? Nearly 300 volunteers from across the country and eight to 10 NRI youngsters have arrived in the State taking a break from work or business to canvass for the party for the February 4 election.
As they fan out across constituencies without much ado, people turn inquisitive. In the past elections, the voters here had only seen party cadres and paid workers out in the campaign field.
“Volunteers are sent to different constituencies according to requirement, based on language and comfort level as per the demands of our observers and requirements of local candidates,” Rahul Mahambres, AAP treasurer, Goa, says.
There are volunteers from Maharashtra, Karnataka and northeastern India. Some of them help out with door-to-door canvassing. Many accompany the party’s chief ministerial candidate, Elvis Gomes, on his Jhaadu [broom] Yatra across the State. Most of them handle logistics and behind-the-scenes work, Ashley Do Rosario, journalist-turned-AAP media coordinator, says. “The best thing about our volunteers from outside is that nobody has any ego. Nobody hesitates to carry out mundane jobs such as distributing pamphlets, hoisting banners, setting the stage for public meetings or be of help to senior leaders in the backroom. Volunteers from more than 10 States are here,” Mr. Rosario says pointing out that for the local volunteers, this is a new experience.
From big cities
He says most of the volunteers have come from the AAP’s Mumbai and Bangalore units. A group from Manipur and Nagaland has been working for quite some time. “Some of us have come from Dubai, Canada and other places,” a U.S.-based sales consultant, Navindu Shiraj, says. He flew in on a month-long mission to “work to ensure that elements like Babush [Atanacio Monserrate, former State Education Minister, who is out on bail in a case of rape of a minor and is an accused in the attack on the city police headquarters and other cases] do not get elected from Panaji”.
“We have a mix of such businessmen and professionals working abroad who have taken time off and come to work with a mission,” says a retired health officer, Marian Godinho, AAP’s candidate in the Nuvem constituency, where he is pitted against a former Minister, Mickky Pacheco.
Mr. Rosario says that most of the volunteers handle their own travel, while the AAP has provided party offices, some rooms and houses of local volunteers for their stay. “These volunteers have come on their own. They eat from a common kitchen, most of them share the same living space with senior party leaders. To be frank, they put us to shame by their simplicity, dedication and commitment,” Oscar Rebello, party spokesperson and senior leader, says. “They have taught us that you don’t require big money to be a candidate in the election.”
