Kartik Mondal lost his livelihood and his ailing father to Covid-19. Yet the virus wasn’t strong enough to bring him down to his knees.
The 43-year-old father of two helped his neighbours set up a community kitchen followed by a public health centre in his ward during the lockdown. Later, he came to the aid of the needy by delivering oxygen cylinders at their doorsteps.
Two Covid-19 waves, one of which saw him battle the virus for two weeks himself, and thousands of distress calls later, Mondal is the CPM candidate for the upcoming Kolkata Municipal Corporation polls from Ward 88.
“I used to replenish cash in ATMs. I lost my job on July 6, 2020. All my savings have been exhausted. I’m now an OTT bike service provider. The bike that helped me deliver oxygen cylinders and food packets to people is now helping me earn my bread and butter,” Mondal said.
“I live in a slum and never hoped to contest polls. Working as a Red Volunteer has brought me closer to my people and that shall help me in the polls,” he said.
During the pandemic, the youth and the students’ wing of the CPM — DYFI and SFI, respectively — started a voluntary initiative to reach out to the distressed people.
They used multiple social media platforms to expand their services to society and came to be known as Red Volunteers.
Mondal is among the 40-odd Red Volunteers whose names figure on the list of 114 candidates announced by the Left Front for the civic polls.
Anusha Akbar, a 29-year-old student of human resource development and the mother of a newborn, is the CPM’s candidate for Ward 46. She joined the CPM around two years ago.
“I was expecting during the pandemic and hence, couldn’t go out. I would sit back at home and identify the people in distress in my ward through social media. Members of my family would then rush to help them. I’m happy that the party has nominated me,” Akbar said.
Not a single Left candidate won in the Assembly polls held earlier this year, a first in the history of Left politics in the history of Bengal since Independence.
Their vote share came down to a mere 5.47 per cent in 2021 from 30.1 per cent in the 2011 Assembly polls, when Mamata Banerjee brought an end to their 34 years of hegemony in the state.
Amidst such circumstances Red Volunteers appear to be a path to redemption for the Left, sources in the CPM said. The young men and women came together without any strong back-up from the party and offered help to anyone in need, irrespective of his or her political affiliation.
In the process, they have been able to establish a relationship with the electorate, the party believes.
Srijan Bhattacharya, the state secretary of SFI, the CPM’s youth wing, said that at one point around 1.5 lakh people were connected to the network of Red Volunteers across the state.
In Kolkata alone, more than 20,000 people were part of the initiative.
Kallol Majumdar, secretary of the CPM’s Calcutta district committee, said: “It is true that the Red Volunteers have earned a highly acclaimed place in society all by themselves…. The work these volunteers did was spontaneous and had little planning from the party.”
He said that when the local committees were asked to suggest names of probable candidates for the KMC polls, the grassroots workers relied largely on Red Volunteers.