How are party tickets doled out?

Party Ticket Dynamics


By Harish Bijoor

What does it take to win the ticket to contest a party seat?

Even as we chat this out, every party of any degree of significance has come out with its list of final candidates. These are the lucky ones who will contest on behalf of the party and fly as the faces of the party in the constituency carved out for them.

There are a lot of disgruntled faces all around. Remember, for every successful ticket-seeker, there are as many as five prominent contenders and as many as a dozen dark-horses that emerge from just nowhere, who are disappointed.

Therefore, in an election, there is more disappointment than joy. At least from the ticket-seekers’ perspective.

How are party tickets doled out then?

Many ways really. I have a list of 17 ways with me. Let me just mention 6.


1) The Rational Way: This is the way that is seldom followed really. Savvy political parties of the day have stopped depending on their old political war-horses to put forth names of who should contest and who should not. They see a bit too much of personal bias and anti-bias in this process. Also, a lot of the senior leadership of the party has been there for so long that they are seldom in touch with the real ground reality.

In a bid to bring a rational degree of objectivity to the process, third party political scientists, political artists and political philosophers alike are brought in to check out on each constituency. A whole list of 16 and odd names are given out to these ground level operators. A few blanks are left as well for them to fill in the blanks if any real solid names come by.

Ground level work is carried out in the constituency and the ‘winnability’ index is drawn out for each of the candidates. This considers every dimension there is. The religious, the political, the social, the economic, the history of work, image scores of the candidate, crimes to record, and more.

This ‘winnability’ index is then tabled and presented to the decision makers to take a call. At times, in the case of some parties (far and few), this list is considered sacred and sacrosanct. In the case of others it is seen to be a guidance docket.

2) The Jury of Executive Opinion: This is a wise-man’s conclave. There are some women in it as well, at times. Let’s remember, our politics is badly represented on the score of gender mix.

The wise men and women will include the local MLA’s who have won their seats in the last election, the sitting MP (who on most occasions wants the ticket for sure), the State head of the party, the Working President (which means there are Presidents who don’t work as well) of the Party, sundry-sets of party functionaries and an eclectic mix of people altogether.

They will all sit together and debate it all. Every positive and negative of the prospective candidate will be discussed and ripped apart. The individual agenda of every one of the participant will come to the fore. And everyone wants to win.

A priority list of candidates is then made out and sent up to the party leadership. The leadership can of course do just what it wants with this list. Just as it can do what it wants with the list generated the Rational Way!

3) Sons and Daughters and Relatives: In every list that I have been privy to see, there are always names of relatives of every kind. There are sons, daughters, sons-in-laws, daughters-in-laws, mothers, fathers, brothers and kins of every other legal and not-so-legal kind.

Most don’t succeed in attracting enough attention though. Unless you are the kinship is really, really close to the center of power.


4) The Supremo’s choice: This really is as irrational as it gets, but it does happen. Loyalty is an important measure in the realm of politics. And loyalty has its rewards. There sure are times when all the lists are just ignored. A dark-horse loyalist will emerge and the entire party machinery will need to rally behind this choice. Happens.




5) The Irrational Way: If there is a rational way, there sue is an irrational way. The local astrologer, the family séance and of course the wife and those closest to the decision maker and their all important role comes into play. Dreams play a good and important role as well, I am told. As does Numerology.


6) The Dummy to the fore: This is a negative choice really. When the party wants to sacrifice the seat to the opponent with whom it has a tacit understanding, or when the party wants to just split votes of a major religious segment or a caste segment for that matter, the dummy is put forth. This is the classical sacrificial goat. The goat knows it is not meant to win. The goat knows it will not win, but all the excitement of the election will be there for it to partake!


Harish Bijoor is a Brand and Political strategy specialist
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
Mobile: 0 98440 83491