The balladeer of the revolution arrived to cast his first ever ballot on Friday, a Telugu edition of the Constitution in hand.
Former Maoist Gummadi Vittal Rao, 70, better known as Gadar, also carried his trademark staff, wrapped in a red rag and a blue one, representing Karl Marx and Babasaheb Ambedkar.
He had been driven to the polling station, 300 metres from his home in Hyderabad’s northern suburb of Trimulgherry, where a constable saluted him and a sub-inspector took a selfie with the silver-haired radical.
Gadar, who in 1972 co-founded the Jana Natya Mandali, the Maoists’ main Telugu cultural troupe, was expelled from the CPI Maoist in 2016. He had been pushing the outfit to embrace electoral politics and Ambedkar’s idea of social justice in addition to communism.
He campaigned for the Congress-led Prajakutami alliance this election despite being denied a chance to contest against chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao from Gajwel. His son G.V. Surya Kiran had joined the Congress earlier this year.
Before voting at St Xavier’s Convent High School in the Malkajgiri constituency, Gadar told The Telegraph that elections were a more effective tool for struggle than insurrection.
“(The) ultimate struggle the people have to do under the red flag in the world. In the intermediate period, they have to take the path of Ambedkar…. The defensive strategy of the people, not just any party, is the vote,” he said.
“I took the Constitution and the slogans of ‘Save India, Save secularism’ and I have been able to go to every nook and corner as a poet. I used to sing about arms, and reached only a few.”
Gadar added: “In the last one year I have been able to reach the youth and say, ‘Don’t commit suicide, don’t do drugs, and don’t distance yourself from politics. Use your vote as a political force to give a tit-for-tat answer to imperialist fascism and Brahmanical Hindu fascism in India’.”
He refused to talk of his misgivings about the Prajakutami. “Victory or failure (in elections) is not the leader’s. It’s the victory or failure of the people,” he said.
“The constitutional consciousness in the country has not gone to the grassroots. People have been made ignorant of the Constitution. The poet or journalist must change this. I want to liberate the vote first and bring about a bhaavuviplavam (revolution in thinking).”
Asked about the probable outcome of these polls, he said: “Ruling and opposition classes have interchanged several times. I represent the people’s class. I have not joined any party. When Rahul’s party said, ‘We want to liberate Parliament from the clutches of a few fundamentalists’, I said, ‘Okay, I will support you’.”
Gadar identified the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti as “our immediate opponent”, alleging chief minister KCR had “betrayed the sacrifices of thousands in the Telangana movement: politically, economically, socially and culturally”.
He added: “(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and KCR are in a secret conspiratorial alliance…. The working class has been deceived and illusions don’t work every time. Definitely this time there will be a silent change.”
At the polling station, sub-inspector B. Parashuram helped Gadar jump the queue. The voters smiled and wished him, and a member of the polling staff accompanied him to the voters’ compartment and explained how an electronic voting machine works.
She waited until Gadar had voted and asked him to check the voter-verified paper audit trail slip and the light burning beside the button he had pressed.
