 "Luizinho Faleiro")
All India Congress Committee General Secretary Luizinho Faleiro tells Aditi Phadnis he is an organisation man, adding it is his job to ensure the rights given by the government are properly implemented and taken to the people these are meant for. Edited excerpts:
Of the five states that went to polls last month, the Congress won only in Mizoram. You played a key role in the win. What did you do right, which others didn't?
I have been lucky. Whether it was Karnataka or Mizoram, I managed to help the party come to power.
I think the media is insensitive and factually incorrect when it shrieks the Congress's performance in the last round of Assembly elections was four-zero. The Delhi-based media seems to forget Mizoram is part of the country; it has a better system of democracy and it was a Congress government that returned to power, beating anti-incumbency.
In general, my motto is 'perform or perish'. Only performance can get you the results you want.
Are you implying the other Congress-ruled states failed to perform?
No, no! I am not saying that. That was my general motto. As the former chief minister of Goa, I can tell you if you are in government, you must make the government perform. But at the same time, you need to ensure the organisation is totally in the picture, that it is attuned to what the government is doing and familiar with what its own government is doing. Whatever charge I was given, I tried to revive and consolidate the organisation.
Basically, I am an organisation man. Our government at the Centre has tried to stay attuned to the party led by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and has rolled out 17 flagship programmes, turning entitlements into rights. As an organisation man, it is my job to see the party is sensitised to this and the rights given by the government are properly implemented and taken to the people these are meant for.
I have tried to do this by advising state units to have special training programmes for party workers, both in states where we are in power, as well as in those where we are in the Opposition.
I have the seven northeastern states under my charge. In the case of Mizoram, I was also in charge in 2008, when we took over the state from the Mizo National Front (MNF). In 2008, as we went for elections, we had a threefold plank: implementing the new land use policy (NLUP), zero tolerance for corruption, and infrastructure development and more facilities for the youth. Several officers helped us a lot in this. Sudha Pillai of the Planning Commission was one.
Why is NLUP so important ? We all know in the past, jhum cultivation was the only way tribals, especially in the hills of the Northeast, could eke out a living.
This is very hard work. It is not easy to clear thickly forested areas. Also, burning the forest leads to intense pollution and decreases soil fertility. But families inhabiting the forest areas would continue to do this till we could offer them alternatives - floriculture, pisciculture, piggery, dairy and horticulture. We trained the people. Now, Mizoram grows the best pineapples, passion fruit, oranges and grapes. It also manufactures a small quantity of wine, though the state is completely dry. We took a year after the elections to roll out our promise. The initial target was 120,000 families, but people took to it with so much enthusiasm that we managed to reach out to 135,000 families.
The policy was given in the hands of the people. The Mizo People's Forum is the most influential non-governmental organisation in Mizoram. We convinced it this would be good for the people. They, as well as the Joint Church Council, Young Mizos Association, etc, helped us roll out the policy. These organisations helped us target the beneficiaries. The government played the role of the facilitator, both with the finance ministry and the Planning Commission.
In the 2013 elections, we assured the people we would extend it to 260,000 families. The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and other programmes were included in the NLUP.
We could do this because a party organisation that took the policy to the people was in place.
Maybe, it was because party chief Lal Thanhawla was also the chief minister.
That doesn't always work. But it helped that there was no anti-party activity. The Mizo society is inclusive. The state has the highest growth rate in the country (an average 11 per cent) and the second-highest rate of literacy. When it secured statehood, the per capita income was about Rs 8,000; today, it is about Rs 50,000.
Gujarat claims it is the role model for the rest of India. It may have succeeded in creating many new crorepatis, but farmers in the state are crying and the crorepatis are smiling. In Mizoram, you can see the real empowerment of farmers.
What about the young people?
To be honest, that is the biggest challenge. With education, prosperity and growth comes ambition. And, why not? We have to keep the young people engaged. This means more aggressive programmes for skill development, especially as literacy is high. We need to have more ideas for self employment and marketing of produce grown here, more value addition. This is our promise for the next five years: youth empowerment.
The other big problem is infrastructure development. The hills around Mizoram are young. So, when it rains - it rains a lot there - there are landslides and the roads are destroyed. There is gas & petroleum in this area, but construction is very difficult. So, we need infrastructure in terms of better roads, connectivity, water, sanitation, etc. The Centre has approved many power projects. We are confident in the next five years, Mizoram will not only become self-sufficient but surplus in power.
What do you think is Mizoram's unique feature?
The state could teach the Election Commission of India a thing or two about participatory democracy! The Mizo People's Forum is an organisation that oversees the conduct of elections. Everyone has subscribed to its guidelines. It rigidly regulates meetings, television time and election spending by political parties. It has drawn up an agreement on the conduct of elections, which everyone has signed; it is binding on all. And, it has the job of getting people to the polling booths to cast their votes.
To cite an example, MNF tried to give money to people to vote for the party. Mizo People's Forum got information of this, went to that person's house, got the person to confess, returned whatever unspent money the family had and put the entire episode in the newspapers. This is one reason why MNF lost.
Of course, the people are attached to the Gandhi family. Rajiv Gandhi had signed the Mizoram accord, which ended insurgency in the state. The crowd at the election rally of his son, Rahul, in Champai was the biggest in the entire Northeast in recent times.
