Getting Good Councillors Elected Workbook for Voters & Candidates

Local Governance through Community Involvement (LGCI) Electing Good Councillors A workbook for Voters and Candidates v1.0 Coordinated by Sanjay Bhargava (sanjaybhargava@yahoo.com) Introduction & Contents
A lot of people in India believe that

A Councillor is not very important Less than 10% of councillors are honest Less than 10% of councillors provide good governance Why should we vote when all are bad?

Years from now, what sort of a country would you like your children and grandchildren to live in? Would you like them to live in a country like Somalia and Congo or would you like them to live in a rich, vibrant and fair society like Switzerland or Japan? Thats one question we need to ask ourselves. The second question --- Is our current system of governance taking us in the Congo or the Switzerland direction. For more on this and to focus on the true villain in this 60+ year movie that is India read http://www.scribd.com/doc/75364458/Reforming-the-Power-Behind-theThrone. Electing Good Councillors is a necessary but not sufficient condition for good governance. I had the good fortune of observing a political party Lok Satta fight elections in Mumbai and PNS (a group of 20 NGOs) fight elections in Pune. Both were trying to use people power to defeat the politics of money and muscle. Having observed these I felt that preparing this workbook may help in getting good councillors elected in Delhi in MCD elections to be held on Wednesday, April 4th 2012. I do not have a liberal arts background and my interest in politics is very recent so this by no means a definitive workbook. I hope that the collaborative efforts by
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Getting Good Councillors Elected Workbook for Voters & Candidates

many people will improve this workbook and more importantly both voters and candidates will use this to produce MeTROs (Measurable Timebound Real Outcomes) which in this case will be the # of good councillors that got elected. The contents of the workbook are listed below

For Voters 1. Why is a councillor important to you the voter?

2. How do the economics of being a councillor work? 3. What are 3 Cs and MeTROs?

4. Are monthly performance reports important and how can you measure performance? 5. Should a community consider performance incentives? 6. What are the characteristics of a good councillor?
7. How can voters get information on candidates and their capabilities?

8. How can you help a good person get elected and why should you? 9. Which are the most common voter mistakes?
10. How can a councillor transform a ward through community involvement with

some use cases? 11. What are some tips which will help me vote easily? For Candidates 1. Why do you want to stand? 2. What are the characteristics of a good candidate? 3. How do you get a ticket or the independent option? 4. What do you need to learn about MCD? 5. What do you need to learn about election rules? 6. What data do you need to collect about your ward? 7. What data do you need to collect about your voters?
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Getting Good Councillors Elected Workbook for Voters & Candidates

8. What will you pledge to voters?
9. Can you buy votes? 10. Can you use muscle to win?

11. Why should you resist inducements to step down? 12. What are Dos and Donts for non traditional campaigning?
13. What to do in the Last 10 days before campaigning ends?

14. What to do on Election Day? 15. What to do if you lose? 16. What to do if you win?

I would love to hand this workbook over to anyone who wants to take it over. I need no attribution, no credit. If India improves and I can play a small part that is reward enough.

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Getting Good Councillors Elected Workbook for Voters & Candidates

For Voters 1. Why is a councillor important to you the voter?
I visited Citibank Buffalo, NY in 1987 or so when Dukkakis was running for President. Buffalo is a small relatively rural town. At lunch I asked them what they thought of Dukkakis and they said they did not know who he was and did not care as for them the mayor of Buffalo was more important than who the President of USA was? A councillor is like the PM of your ward and if he/she is a good leader they can do a lot for your immediate concerns, potholes, sanitation, corruption etc. They can also make your ward 100% literate, 100% financially included, zero open defecation and so on. Lets take 100% literacy. The councillor as an enabler could facilitate the work of a good NGO in the area of literacy and 100% literacy will happen . Not convinced read a few more sections and I think you will change your mind.

2. How do the economics of being a councillor work?

Currently they do not. If carrot juice is not the outcome you want. Lets say you want biryani. If you follow a recipe for carrot juice it will not magically produce biryani. To get a ticket major parties allegedly want the prospective councillor to show his commitment to the party by donating to the party. In addition the candidates have to spend on the campaign. Once elected if they want to be full time and run an office they have more expenses than inflow from salary and allowances. In short the entire system is designed for corruption and thus it is not surprising that corruption is rampant. Once in a while you get a councillor who is wealthy and not interested in petty corruption. They may be politically ambitious as well and if they own real estate in the ward they see a clear economic benefit if the ward improves. In some cases you may have Desh Bhakts for whom economics is not important. This type is few and far between thus in most cases the economics for a good councillor does not work. For a bad one the return on investments beats real estate, stocks, gold etc. hands down so in most case the councillor race is set up to attract bad ones and deter good ones so guess what outcome you get . Can this picture Change? Yes it can. See Section 5.

3. What tools can a councillor use to produce 3 Cs and MeTROs?

The three Cs are Cleanliness, Corruption prevention and Community Involvement. Metros are Measurable Timebound Real Outcomes. Quite a mouthful. An example should help make MeTROs clear. We are all used to
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empty politicians promises. In a few years we will make Mumbai like Shanghai OR It is a shame that in 2012 humans in our country defecate in the open. We will eliminate this. These are not MeTROs. A MeTRO for reducing open defecation in a ward will be As of June 30, 2012 youth volunteers have identified 2536 open defecators. By Dec 31, 2012 the number will be 500 or less.

4. Are monthly performance reports important and how can you measure performance?
Monthly performance reports are important if they do not contain ridiculous stuff like I attended so many mundans, weddings, cut so many ribbons, had 100% attendance in council meetings and asked six questions. By the way I also cut six ribbons. Monthly reports on progress on MeTROs like on July 31 the defecators went up to 2645 because of migration into the area would focus attention on curbing migration and so on. It is possible to get a score for councillor performance across his ward by using reporting blocks and elements. For people who are not interested in the mechanics do not click this link http://www.scribd.com/doc/70141935/SelfReporting-Manual. Just assume it can be done. Once you have base score you can set a target and as long as the measurement is independent and cannot be fudged you can track performance.

5. Should a community consider performance incentives?

In section 2 we looked at economics. The economics can be changed radically if a community rewards its public servants including councillors with performance incentives. A ward with 40000 voters could contribute an average of Rs 100 annually, Rs 8 a month or Rs 0.27 a day and collect Rs 40 lacs to give performance incentives to public servants including the councillor. Some voters will not pay. Others could pay for them and a tracker could list on the web who paid and who did not. Indians are famous for PV (Paisa Vasool). However, here by waiting for the government to pay better and/or put in performance incentives communities are shooting themselves in the foot. The toilets in Basrurkar Market near where we live are spotless because a sweet shop owners gives the sanitation workers breakfast before his shop opens.

6. What are the characteristics of a good councillor?

Susan Raj from Pune has come up with the DUCK model. A good councillor is
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Getting Good Councillors Elected Workbook for Voters & Candidates

D Diligent Not lazy U- Unselfish Do not siphon money to self C- Courageous Has courage to point out those who are corrupt K- Knowledgeable Has knowledge- e.g. why the road gets potholes regularly, why river has sewage, why garbage needs to be segregated etc... The councillor in addition must I think have LEADERSHIP. Leaders often build teams with more knowledge then the leader. They attract talent instead of spoons (Chamchas Whatever High Command says I will do)

7. How can voters get information on candidates and their capabilities?

If you have read this far then you are probably feeling that I must vote and vote for the best candidate. If you are not then maybe this video will change your mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMTm7n_uW-c

As a reward for reading so much here is a cool video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJqLRbK5YFs&lc=A2tzba39fO9jLIc0JmmQoL5_zT_ukX2CMDhbl3MHmE

Lets do it! Delhi 272 which is a citizens movement (not an NGO so cannot take or pay money) is giving all candidates an option to sign a tough accountability pledge and will maintain a dashboard and an IVR. This movement is recommending that voters choose from candidates who have signed the pledge. There will also be sponsored events where candidates who have signed the pledges will be able to speak at a moderated debate so that interested voters can choose the best among the candidates who have signed the pledge. The state election commission has a guide for voters. See
http://ceodelhi.gov.in/WriteReadData/Voters/A%20guide%20for%20voters.pdf.

Section 8.2 says that anyone can see the affidavits of all contesting candidates. Lets do it! Delhi 272 will try and make it easy for voters to get information on candidates. This guide also has detail on what you can do if someone else has cast a vote in your name and how you can vote for no one 49-O. 49-O sounds nice but it is like one of those eyewash things where you feel good but nothing much happens.
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8. How can you help a good person get elected and why should you?
The first thing you can do is convince good people to stand. The second is to volunteer time and money to help the candidate help you. The reason you should help a good candidate that you believe in is that with your help the candidates chance of winning go up and your vote is not wasted. Often people feel that a vote to an independent or small party is wasted but forget that if you are voting for the devil or the deep blue sea then whoever you vote for and whoever wins your vote is truly wasted.

9. Which are the most common voter mistakes? a. The Biryani and Sharab Mistake
One days happiness and five years hangover makes this a bad deal. The best thing is to take illegal inducements offered and then to vote as you choose. If fear is the problem see next section

b. The Fear Factor

It is very instructive to read the Monkey Master Fable (Page 17) in this handbook which served as a guide for Arab Spring
http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf.

These goons are like the Monkey Master and the minute the voters know that they need not fear intimidation whoever gets elected because organized youth in large numbers will come to their defence then this intimidation will go away. The very polling data that is available to goons is available to organized youth and if there is a number to call and many youth show up then the fear factor will disappear.

c. The Pappu Factor

Since voting day is a mid week holiday many well off people take off for a long weekend. Major political parties like educated people becoming Pappus ( Pappu cannot vote Saala) and even this time maybe the date April 4 is positioned in such a way near Mahavir Jayanti, April 5 so that the Pappu pull is high. Will come out and vote campaigns deflate the Pappu factor. A few days of fun and five years of pain. This mistake is similar to the Biryani, Sharab mistake. Maybe candidates could say April 4th ko Desh ki Shaadi heh. Miss mat karna....

d. Councillor elections are not important

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A lot of voters think voting for MLA, MP is much more important than voting for a councillor. We hope word of mouth spreading and Get out the Vote campaigns will dispel these wrong notions
10. How

can a councillor transform a ward through community involvement with some use cases?

Lets do it! Delhi has been working on Ward 103 as an advisor to the councillor. A plan has now been drawn to get volunteer advisors and monitors from the community who will follow a code of conduct (no personal matters) and put in atleast ten hours per week. Those who serve well will be rewarded with their names being put up on a roll of honour. Youth would get certificates and could be promoted in the youth army that helps the councillor. This is still to take firm root in Ward 103 but people are beginning to understand the power of community involvement. Lets see some actual use cases

a. Biodegradeable garbage
See www.mericity.in to see how real outcomes were achieved in Punjabi Bagh and are being replicated across Delhi

b. Area inspections
The councillor and advisors created area teams to inspect problems in areas that needed rectification in a sustainable manner. One of the outcomes is that after an area is cleaned circulars are sent on how to dispose green waste and Malba. Violators are going to be fined. While the fines are low the inconvenience of fines are high. The idea of being strict on fines has widespread community support. This is still being rolled out so we have to see how well it works

c. CNG & Buses

A CNG filling station and a bus depot is causing problem ever since the bus fleet has increased. DTC is parking buses on colony roads and the location of the CNG station is such that traffic goes the wrong way and the police do nothing. This has nothing to do with MCD but because voters see the councillor as PM of ward they want him to solve this. The councillor has tried but not succeeded. Advisors had drafted a letter. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/75291046/Punjabi-Bagh-CNG but I do not think the letter was sent and I think people are still living with this problem.

d. Community Toilets
The logical thought was that if self reporting could fix biodegradeable garbage then it should be able to fix toilets as well. However, on reading the contract we
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found that the contract was bad and needed major change. MCD has been dragging its feet and there is no intense pressure from councillor or citizens so the problem remains

e. Revenue
A councillor who raises revenue collected from the ward may or may not be popular but a good councillor and a good community must think of this. Should advertising tax which has not be raised since 1952 be raised. Should people have to pay for use of public land for parking or storing construction material? Communities have a choice. If they pay for a bullock cart they cannot get a Nano. The other problem is that if revenue collected increases it goes into a central pool and most of it vanishes due to corruption. This has to be fixed so that communities have an incentive to raise ward revenue

f. Parking Utopia
This ward has a stadium that was never built. Some of that land could be used to build a huge puzzle parking system with shuttles. If this is done parking rates on colony roads could be very high and the colony roads could be mostly free of parked cars. Financing this could be not that hard with the city, corporates (advt, naming rights) and a bond issue subscribed by residents (secured by parking fees and the puzzle parking structure). A retired investment banker living in Punjabi Bagh could put this together or it could be professionally done.

11. What are some tips which will help me vote easily?
If you have a voter ID card you still must find out your polling booth, which EP (electoral part) you are listed in and your serial number in that EP. You can do that by going to http://ceodelhi.gov.in/OnlineErms/ElectorSearch.aspx Assembly constituency (AC) 43 Part no. 84 Serial number 381 Section no. 2 Address B-x/xx, BLOCK- B NAVKETAN G/H SOCIETY KALU SARAI xxxxx KAPUR Husband xxxx LAL 74 Female Voter ID : BVXxxxx.

You will need to know where your polling booth is. Normally candidates will provide you this information but you can also do this online. In the above case by going to http://ceodelhi.gov.in/ConstituentyDetail.aspx?ac_no=43&Ac_Name=MALVIYA %20NAGAR and then finding Navketan and clicking on http://ceodelhi.gov.in/WriteReadData/AssemblyConstituency/AC43/A0430084.pdf
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one gets all the electors in Part 84 and finds that the polling booth is in the MCD School at Sarvpriya Vihar. This is not very voter friendly but it is the best there is. If you are listed in the electoral roll and do not have a Voter ID or have lost your voter ID you can use another document as identity proof. We have the one for Mumbai but do not have the official list for Delhi (We will find and update). Here is the Mumbai list. http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_documents-required-for-voting_1650852 There is also a voters guide here http://ceodelhi.gov.in/WriteReadData/Voters/A
%20guide%20for%20voters.pdf

Lets do it! Delhi as part of its get out the vote campaign will try and make it easy for you to vote including maybe having volunteers who will give you a lift should you need one ( as long it is allowed by EC)

SO NOW IF YOU ARE ON THE ELECTORAL ROLL YOU HAVE NO REASON NOT TO VOTE!!!!

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For Candidates 1. Why do you want to stand, Time Management, Team ?
In most cases in the past the answer was clear. To get power and to make money. Now with the nation somewhat awake it is not clear that either power or money will work. The councillor may have to be a servant and may not have many opportunities to make money through corruption. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/81765368/Pune-Unofficial-Pledge .

If you want to make a difference in your ward and/or build a political career then these are excellent reasons to stand. An honest political career gives you many networking opportunities that can lead to legitimate monetary benefits.

The higher you go in politics the more difficult it becomes to stay clean and one person I know decided not to contest a mayor race because it would be difficult for her to remain clean and if she did become corrupt the sins would be to her account and her children would benefit. She did not think this made any sense. Fortunately this is also changing.

Winning your campaign is like doing the Mount Everest Base Camp trek. It is hard and it needs preparation. It is quite unlikely that you will win with all the odds against you unless you ,your volunteers and fundraisers put in a lot of effort and work on the right things. For you personally it would be very wise in the last 40 days of your campaign to put in 16 hours a day seven days a week and have no distractions social or otherwise. If your brother gets married during this period you make a token appearance of two hours and get back to work. If you were a jawan in the army fighting on the border could you come back to attend a family function ? Even with this level of effort of 640 hrs if you have 40000 voters you have 1 minute per voter so you need to build a team. You cannot do it yourself and your team members need to be well briefed but then be able to work on their own

If you are honest and you get elected by spending none of you own money and you can put in say 20- 30 hours per week, get good advisors etc then you can fulfil your pledge to the ward. You will get paltry allowances as a councillor which unless you do not need an income will make it tough to make ends meet. If you are able to convince your community to give you performance incentives then you can become
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full time. You can also mount a campaign for councillors to get good compensation from MCD. This will become easier if you help plug leakage of MCD revenue and that funds the compensation you get. The bottom line on why you should stand is that you can with your leadership set an example and transform your ward (see section 10 of voter handbook). This can inspire others and India could move in the direction of Switzerland rather than Somalia.

2. What are the characteristics of a good candidate?

A lot of the content in this section is adapted from http://www.lpwv.org/files/18_Steps_to_Win_a_Local_Election.pdf. A candfidate should be

Confident
A successful candidate has the confidence of knowing that they are the best person for the job and are not afraid to explain why. A candidate may occasionally feel nervous but swallows that nervous energy and makes that work to their advantage. A successful candidate is not over confident and does not underestimate their opponents

Authentic
Voters connect with people who speak from the heart on things that really matter to them. If you talk of esoteric things or make tall promises they will see through this. Talk on issues that really matter and show you will solve them

Truthful
There is no harm in admitting that you do not know something and will find out and revert. Some problems are very difficult to solve and you can only try your best to solve them..

Punctual
It is better to be few minutes early rather than late. If you keep your audience waiting you are already breaking promises. It is the job of your campaign team to keep you on schedule.
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Polite
All successful candidates are polite and civil but not the types who agree with everything that anybody says. If the candidate disagrees then they should point that out and agree to disagree. It is impossible to please everyone.

Well Groomed
Your public appearance must constitute professionalism at all times. These days wearing Khadi may not be such a good thing. At the same time being over dressed is not a good thing either.

Informed
Knowledge about MCD, your ward, problems of all sections and how you plan to fix them will be important in convincing people to vote for you. Be open to listening and learning. Use local examples. Know the most common reasons people of different classes will not vote for you and try to convince them to switch. A few common things independents and small party candidates should keep in mind a. My vote will be wasted. You will not win Your vote is wasted if the candidate who wins does a poor job. If you think I will do a good job then you should vote for me and convince others to vote for me so I will win. b. Hindu must vote BJP, Muslim must vote Cong Some people feel that if they vote for a good independent and not as above then Cong or BJP may win which would be bad. Some Muslims feel that let anyone win but not BJP so fearing a BJP win they vote for the one who is most likely to defeat BJP. The counter to this is to show you have strength at some point in your campaign and to also point out in areas where BJP has won have Muslims had a terrible time or in areas where Cong has won has it been great for Muslims. In short do not vote based on religion, caste etc. Vote for the best person who will deliver results c. Countering Muscle In the slums people may not vote out of fear. To counter this the text from Section 10 of the workbook for voters is repeated here It is very instructive to read the Monkey Master Fable (Page 17) in this handbook which served as a guide for Arab Spring
http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf. 13 | P a g e

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These goons are like the Monkey Master and the minute the voters know that they need not fear intimidation whoever gets elected because organized youth in large numbers will come to their defence then this intimidation will go away. The very polling data that is available to goons is available to organized youth and if there is a number to call and many youth show up then the fear factor will disappear.

Fundraiser
If a candidate cannot raise money then they should consider doing something else. Some spend their own money but the key skill of convincing others is important. Barack Obamas grassroots campaign is famous but we have a homegrown example. Bhairu from Pune Siad he was honest and doing shramdan and the community should support him as they support monks by doing Dhan dan . They could give as little as Rs 7/- ( Saat deke Sath do). Most people gave him more than Rs 7 and also it helped him get his message across. ( Need to update this with more facts from Bhairu if he is willing to share and it would be interesting to see if he won). The legal limit for spending was raised to 5 lacs in Mumbai. We have to determine what this is for Delhi. Raising money from voters is very difficult in India but hopefully some people will succeed. In my view you do need to spend some money to win an election.

3. How do you get a ticket or the independent option?

Sometimes major parties will pursue to stand on their ticket or even pay you to stand. If you are a celebrity or have a name because of your work this may happen to you. In quite a few cases the major parties will want donations from you to get a ticket. Major parties continue to win so the argument that a major party ticket may help you win cannot be denied. An increasing number of people are disgusted with the major parties and want to consider standing as independents or with smaller parties. There are clean political parties like Lok Satta but they have so far not been able to get critical mass. A party like Lok Satta could be a good platform for people who want to be a big fish in a small pond and are ready to play an active role and shape the party. Parties such as Lok Satta have very few actual downsides for people who want to choose between standing as independents or parties like Lok Satta. Perception wise there may be a downside with people who brand all political parties as evil. On the positive side as in any start up if a small party grows then it could help you a lot and give you a platform to get visibility for your ideas and drive consensus to get real outcomes.
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As an independent or minority party candidate people often wonder how you will get things done when a major party is in power. As a councillor for doing many things in your ward you do not need support of anyone else and in other cases if you are good not belonging to a party enables you to speak your mind freely and in quite a few cases get even more than your fair share. As for doing things for the city you can support good ideas from wherever, try and stop bad ones and put up some of your own. It is often said that one citizen can make a difference. As a councillor you have more power than one citizen.

4. What do you need to learn about MCD?

Tata Tea once ran an ad campaign under its Jaago Re initiative where a person wanted to interview a political candidate because he wanted to take on the important job of running the country. It is indeed shocking that most of the candidates do not even know of the MCD act http://www.mcdonline.gov.in/publications/DMC
%20Act.v.11..pdf.

The act itself is quite tough to read. It is 177 pages long but the candidates must know the basics. To make this section effective we will try and work with people who have served as councillors to make a primer that every candidate should know. The website of MCD is http://www.mcdonline.gov.in/. These are the 33 departments of MCD
http://www.mcdonline.gov.in/deptdetail.php?id=5

There 12 zones, 272 wards and many colonies. See

http://www.mcdonline.gov.in/zonelist.php

Here is the list of current councillors

http://www.mcdonline.gov.in/mcddir/counsellorslist.php. In other tabs you can

find details of the various committees, offices etc. A lot of this will change with the trifurcation of MCD. The engineers, sanitary superintendents, sanitation workers have a dotted line relationship to the councillor though they report to the DC of the zone. There are 12 zones. The councillor as the elected representative of the people has vast derived powers which can be used to favour people or in a positive way. We would like to get definitive details of funds available to councillors, allowance etc and how the budget of MCD works . On the web this is what I found
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http://www.dailypioneer.com/city/41240-development-funds-for-councillorshiked.html

Here is what I could find in MCD Budget. http://www.caclub.in/2011/12/mcdbudget-increased-property-tax.html

We will try and make this section more useful in future versions.

5. What do you need to learn about election rules?

The main site that every candidate should be aware of is http://ceodelhi.gov.in/. On this site the electoral rolls as of 5th January, 2012 are available. These will not be the final one used but is an excellent starting point and a great place for all candidates who want to avoid the risk of getting rid of bogus voters or voters who have moved to get them removed. It may also be possible for those not in to be included or for a person not on the roll to vote. All these have to be found out and documented. The roll is on http://ceodelhi.gov.in/electioninfo.aspx. This is broken up by assembly constituency and not by ward so you have to first determine the assembly constituency then figure out which parts are for your ward and then save the PDF s one by one. It should be a simple exercise for the election office to make it more user friendly but they will not do that. Instead of PDF if these were available in excel it would be much better but for some reason they do not do that. Data is also available on CD. I have not looked at that. Maybe it is better. In the final list they probably will not give change details so it is easy to update and keep your list current. The update process will be painful as well. There are vendors like Political Edge http://politicaledge.in/what_we_do.html that some people may want to use but in my discussions with them they did not find the budgets for MCD elections lucrative enough and were not open to outcome based pricing. If you are a small party candidate or an independent you will not get a symbol till your nomination is approved. This puts you at a significant disadvantage but that is the way it is. In Delhi it is likely that nominations will start around March 15th and close around March 22nd. You should have all your papers ready well before so that you do not have to run around last minute. MCD has been trifurcated into North, East and South Delhi. If you are on the electoral roll in say South Delhi you can contest any ward in South Delhi but your proposers and seconders must be on the electoral roll of the ward you are contesting from. You can find an FAQ for contestants here http://ceodelhi.gov.in/Contestants.aspx. There is no specific FAQ for MCD elections.
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The Model code of conduct can be found here
http://ceodelhi.gov.in/WriteReadData/Contestent/Model%20Code%20of %20Conduct.pdf

This is likely to be enforced around March 4th and then the chronology will be clear. It is good to know the rules and not violate them but for a small party or independent person worrying about violations by the big guys may be not very useful. Leave that to the other big parties, election observers etc. We are trying to find out spending limit, deposit amount and how you have to submit paperwork to SEC. Once we have this we will update.
6.

What data do you need to collect about your ward and your competition?

Screening yourself or parties screening prospective candidates is very important. Here is how you can find out if you have what it takes to win. The first step is to use a simpler version of the self reporting manual http://www.scribd.com/doc/70141935/Self-Reporting-Manual . Figure out the reporting blocks in your ward and the elements you want to track. Set up the reporting scales and then get a score for your ward. If you prepare a good document on the as is state of your ward then you can use it in your campaign. To show how you will fix things choose one issue that will resonate with each major segment of your voters and on that see how you will fix it. Document that as a case study. Again this could be used in your campaign. A lot of your voters are poor. Study schemes for them. Two major central govt schemes are RSBY (Rashtriya Bima Yojana) and Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojna (SJSRY). See http://www.missionconvergence.org/implementationsupport.html and there are various State govt. Schemes which can be found on
http://www.missionconvergence.org/convergence-support.html.

The list of functional GRCs can be found on

http://www.missionconvergence.org/grcsk.php

As the prospective PM of your ward you have to see that these schemes reach people in your ward. None of the major parties will raise a hue and cry if there are problem with these schemes. The ruling party will tell the councillor to keep quiet if they are from the party and unfortunately the opposition will do the same as they are all profiting from the leakages. If you win you can also enable NGOs that work on health, education, literacy etc to work on your ward. Once you have identified problems you can connect with good
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NGOs and even during your campaign show how you will be able to transform the ward. The bottom line is that to win you have to win in most sections of your ward. The poor and rich must both vote for you so you must connect with both. In terms of knowing your competition you have to understand the dynamics of your ward and who won past elections who lost and why. You can see the past results at
http://delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/DoIT_DSEC/delhi+state+election+commissi on/our+services/m+c+d+election+2007

The pledge could be one way of putting competition in two buckets pledged and non pledged and then among pledged you have to find a way of showing you are best among pledged. Lets do it! Delhi 272 will try its best to organize pledge awareness in a major way in print, radio, TV

7. What data do you need to collect about your voters?

The electoral roll as of January 5th, 2012 is on
http://ceodelhi.gov.in/AccemblyConstituenty.aspx

You have to first find your assembly constituency in which your ward is located. Once you do that you then have to find all the PDFs of all the electoral parts in your ward which will be a subset of the electoral parts of the assembly constituency. You can also make a summary excel sheet of all the electoral parts and polling booths. The summary for Ward 165, Vasant Vihar is here
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82098041/Ward-165

The PDF for electoral part 109 in Vasant Vihar is here

http://www.scribd.com/doc/82098038/Ward-165-Tagore-Intnl-109

Once you know your electoral parts choose a diverse 40% to start understanding your voters and see if you can get atleast 50 people from these diverse parts that will vote for you and donate time and/or money to help you win. In one electoral part refine your process of convincing, voters, raising money etc and then extend it to others. You may have to customise a bit depending on income levels of your voters. The work you have done in knowing your ward should help you in convincing voters

8. What will you pledge to voters?

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People are fed up but they are very skeptical. Dispelling this scepticism is hard and the pledge below which is still being refined is a step in that direction

Prime Minister of the Ward

I am standing as a candidate in the upcoming MCD 2012 elections to be conducted on April 4, 2012. If elected I will seek to serve you as the prime minister of your ward. I realize that you the voters think of me as your elected representative for matters that I do not control directly. I will try my best to address all issues that are hurting the ward to the best of my ability.

3-5 MeTROs
Within 100 days of being elected I will build a team of voluntary advisors from all sections of my ward who will serve as my cabinet and together with them we will publish an annual plan with 3-5 MeTROs measurable timebound real outcomes. We will work on other things as well but I will publish a monthly report by the 7th of following month giving the status of the MeTROs at the end of the month.

Corruption Prevention & Performance Incentives

Reducing corruption in my ward will be a major priority for me. Just as malaria cannot be eradicated without prevention corruption cannot be eliminated without prevention. With my advisory team we will publish our corruption reduction and performance incentive plan with 180 days of being elected and I will provide monthly updates on progress. To monitor spending on major projects I will appoint resident monitors who will look at projects from tendering to completion and publish reports on the web for all to see.

Acting as an Enabler & Involving youth

I feel all of us in the ward must have bank accounts and be literate. I will work out a plan with banks and educators to make this happen. I also want zero open defecation and malnutrition in my ward. A plan will be prepared in 180 days and you will get monthly progress reports. I will form a youth army within 180 days of being elected to independently measure MeTROs and to act as volunteers for social projects. These youth will get social work certificates.

Under promise over Deliver

I will not make empty promises like others make that everyone will have a job, house, water, electricity and good roads. You have been hearing these for years. I
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will work on all these but with very clear specific plans which will be in my MeTROs. I am not a magician and I cannot promise you miracles but I will listen and focus on innovation, fast and good execution.

50% + Thumbs down

If elected I will be at your service and live up to the trust you have reposed in me. I will not be addicted to my chair. If someone sets up a good robust system to measure the number of voters in my ward who are giving me thumbs down for bad performance and that number exceed 50% I will resign.

Pledge Enforcement
I recognize that many may think that enforcing this pledge may be difficult but I think the youth of the country are powerful enough to find creative ways of enforcing this pledge.

Lose or Win I will Serve

My objective is to serve the ward so if the person who wins has signed a similar pledge then I will serve as an advisor if I get 500 or more votes. If I win I will take on as advisors all my opponents who got 500 or more votes as advisors.

Please Vote & Vote for a person who has signed the pledge
I hope to convince you I am the best and earn your vote. If you do not vote for me please do vote but vote for an opponent who has signed the pledge.

Signed

Date:

Witness 1 Witness 2

9. Can you buy votes?

As a good councillor you cannot but to get elected you have to counter vote buying. Most people understand that they can accept money from one and vote for another.
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They do not do this for three main reasons. One is intimidation the other is they do not want to be a Namak Haram and lastly they do not want to break an oath. On intimidation if they are met by your polling agent who is part of a youth group that will prevent victimization then the intimidation factor will be reduced. Lets do it! Delhi will try and put this youth group together for candidates who have signed the pledge. On the other two reasons people have to be convinced that if you are Namak Haram or break an oath with evil people it is okay. Maybe you have to use some Hindi movie examples. If a family of four voters is say getting Rs 50000 every five years from selling their votes for all types of elections then they may be worried if buying does not work then this cash flow will stop. This is a hard one but if you show them how much they are losing by being kept in poverty and do they want to see the same for their kids and grandkids you may be able to sway some of them especially youth and women.

10. Can you use muscle to win?

In the urban areas muscle power is less of a factor but even if it is there it can be neutralised. In case in your ward you think muscle may be a big factor then approach police/media and try and make a stink. If you do this check on your own security as well. In wards where muscle is a problem it is best to have defensive muscle with you as well and an observer who will call the police if there is a problem. The youth brigade to prevent victimisation and muscle may need to be activated. Just as if there is a fire alarm fire engines rush the youth brigade must rush. If the youth brigade is activated a few times then the goons will stop as news will spread.

11. Why should you resist inducements to step down?

It is possible that you will receive inducements and threats to make you step down . It may be hard to resist these but you have to keep remembering the reasons why you stood. If you move over to the dark side I would say it is for the best because you were the sort of person who would not deliver as a good councillor anyway so good riddance to bad rubbish.

12. What are Dos and Donts for non traditional campaigning?
Read http://www.scribd.com/doc/82142926/Winning-Candidate. You cannot beat Goliath by traditional methods and you have very little money to spend. Lets assume limit is 5 lacs, you have to reach 40000 voters. If you have 10 fund raisers who are passionate about making you win then each needs to reach 800 voters and raise Rs 10000 or an average of Rs 12.50. The fundraiser could be
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paid 80% of what they raise or Rs 8000. This is not much as if the cost in terms of time etc is more than Rs 10/- per voter then there is no economic breakeven. Thus your spreaders have to be passionate and the money they keep is only to give them a sense of achievement and some compensation. Recruiting your spreaders, training them well is key as if they cannot speak with sincerity then they will fail. You need to document this and once we have a model working we will put a link to the model in this document. The suggestion is that you put all your eggs in this WOMMA basket and in speaking to groups whenever and wherever you can. If media covers you great but you cannot pay to get covered. The little money that will get left over will be used for last 10 days of polling plus Election Day. If you can have a website and circulate clips that can go viral on mobile phone than do that. For websites you can make a basic one for free at Google Sites
https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?continue=https%3A%2F %2Fsites.google.com%2F&followup=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com %2F&service=jotspot&passive=true&ul=1

For mobile clips you can look at http://www.vuclip.com/. You can also transfer digital messages to smart phones but to get these viral they have to be something like Kolaveri Di . See http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=iJqLRbK5YFs This is too long but bits of this with your message could be great. Focus is very important. Just do the critical things and forget about the rest, manage your time wisely. Clear your calendar. Make every hour count. Sleep less and inspire your team. If they see the candidate working hard they may also work hard but if the candidate is slow forget it. It has very important to set up phone trees so that you can communicate messages and SMSs virally. You will need phone tree volunteers in each electoral part.
13. What to do in the Last 10 days before campaigning ends?

In the last ten days you need to get your symbol out through phone trees. Make sure your committed voters stay committed, your undecided voters decide in your favour and maybe some who were not going to vote for you change their mind. You also need to have days mapped out with speaking engagements. Ideally your website will have clips that people can see. So having a videographer along may be a good idea if you can afford one or get a volunteer. 14. What to do on Election Day?
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Please call all your friends, neighbours, family and extended family ('khandan') to please spare atleast one day in order to help you but organize this way in advance. Polling agents must be from the group that were going to prevent intimidation. Your voters should already know their polling booths, EP #, Serial # etc but yet you may want to have tables and chairs if you can wear T-Shirts, symbols etc. The fund raiser should be there as he/she maybe a familiar face. Your polling agents should have a list of doubtful serial numbers so that if that serial number comes you issue a challenge. If the voter is bogus make sure presiding officer hands him over to police. If genuine update your list as genuine. Let people know in advance you are going to do this and bogus voting will be avoided. Phone trees here are critical and you want to keep getting out the vote with a central coordinator knowing the voting. Focus especially on your committed voters. We will update this with more logistics tips later

15. What to do if you lose?

Honour your pledge and become an advisor if you get more than 500 votes and the winner has pledged. If winner has not pledged create a pressure group to get him to pledge and serve community

16. What to do if you win?

Deliver on your pledge and transform your ward in a replicable manner. Anna transformed Ralegaon Siddhi but it was not replicated. Do an Anna in a replicable manner.

Get out there and win. Good councillors can transform India one ward at a time !!!!

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