Six in 15 years: Why this pav bhaji seller in old city can’t stop contesting elections

Gurgaon: Kusheshwar Bhagat is as fluent with the nitty-gritty of filing nomination papers for elections as he is with the quantity of butter that goes into his pav bhaji, which he has been selling from a cart in the old city since 1996.

Now 54, Bhagat is an unlikely veteran of elections, contesting his fourth straight one from the Gurgaon parliamentary constituency as an Independent. He got 1,044 votes in 2009 and 434 in 2019. He has also contested two assembly polls, bagging 97 votes in 2009 and 179 in 2014. The 2014 Lok Sabha polls was his peak performance – Bhagat bagged 8,000 votes and motivation to keep him going for years. The obsession with elections is part business acumen, part duty to society for Bhagat, who is candid about the “publicity” it brings him to get more customers. But he feels strongly, he says, about ‘shiksha’ (education) and ‘swasthya’ (health), which are his twin poll planks.

According to his affidavit, his annual income is Rs 4.75 lakh. He has liabilities of Rs 8.5 lakh and assets amounting to Rs 11.5 lakh, which includes a car, 10 grams of gold belonging to his wife and a life insurance policy.

But his “biggest asset”, which Bhagat says no other candidate can match (he’d probably have a winning chance if elections were solely based on this) is his deep insight into the mood of the person on the street, where he runs his business.

“From my interactions with the public here, I believe they are now fed up with electing the same MP for five terms. People want alternatives,” he says. “The candidates of major political parties come out of their plush homes just a month before voting and are nowhere to be seen after that.” There is “silence”, he says, which shows people’s desire for change.

Gurgaon’s Lok Sabha rink has three main candidates – five-time MP Rao Inderjit Singh (BJP), Congress veteran Raj Babbar and singer-rapper Fazilpuria (JJP).

“I am with the public every day from 5.30pm to 10.30pm. I make pav bhaji and discuss issues,” Bhagat said, switching to his campaign hat in between working his stainless-steel mashers on the tawa as the bhaji cooks.

At the same time, he is candid about his business instinct. “Elections give me publicity. The more people get to know about a pav bhaji seller contesting elections, the more they visit my stall and eat pav bhaji,” Bhagat told TOI. Both Bhagat’s sons assist their father at the kiosk. Manoj, 27 and the younger of the brothers, said his father will contest future elections too. “He had secured less than 500 votes last time. But the very fact that a common man like my father is getting the support of 500 people is motivating for us. Before that, he got support of 8,000 people. For us, that itself is an achievement,” he said.

Displaying Bhagat’s photo and his election symbol (a sitar), the pav bhaji seller also has a manifesto that says he will work on improving education, wiping out corruption, and generating employment opportunities. Some of his customers were aware of his election plunge but it’s the taste of Bhagat’s pav bhaji, they said, that brought them back to him. Yash Goyal (27), a regular at Bhagat’s, said, “I have been coming here for eight years. There are several pav bhaji sellers in old Gurgaon but the one he makes tastes best because he customises it.”

Bhagat, who is a registered vendor under the PM SVANidhi scheme, was a teenager when he left his village in Bihar’s Madhubani and went to Mumbai to try his luck in acting. He spent five years there before moving to Gurgaon.