The practice of political parties hitting the road for district- and village-centric programmes and their leaders interacting with common folks is commendable. Of late, it has become a trend of Nepal’s political parties to convene local campaigns, for weeks or even months. The main opposition, the CPN (Maoist Centre), on Monday kicked off a month-long ‘Tarai-Madhesh awakening campaign’. The Nepali Congress, the biggest ruling party, carried out a ‘100-day special campaign,’ while its coalition companion CPN-UML has started the Jara Abhiyan (a grassroots campaign), which will be conducted at ward levels across the country. Likewise, the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal recently carried out a four-month ‘special campaign to expand party organisation’. Leaders of the new Rastriya Swatantra Party have been on walkathons, such as the one from Narayanghat to Butwal last year. The UML is ahead of other parties in running such drives. The party has run major campaigns such as ‘mission grassroots’ and a march along the Mid-hill Highway under the leadership of party chair KP Sharma Oli.

As the central level leaders of rival political parties frequently descend to districts and villages, a few questions are worth asking: are they holding these gatherings just to display their ground strength? Or do they have a substantive new message to deliver? And do they really listen to the commoners’ concerns? The public can already predict what the Nepali leaders, mainly the top guns, across the political divide will talk about when they address gatherings. They spend most time spitting venom against rival leaders. Even second-rung leaders are the same. And people are fed-up listening to the rants of the same-old leaders, for years and decades. Right now, there is an unhealthy (and entirely avoidable) war of words between Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the Maoist Centre head.

Rather, leaders would do better to try to hear about people’s plights and connect with them on an emotional level. Yes, this would be more time consuming rather than short speech-giving events, but in the long run such close interactions between political leaders and people will benefit both. It is vital to listen to people. But that is not enough. After completion of the UML’s much-touted mid-hill highway march, the UML came up with a report and party chair Oli submitted it to then prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist Centre. Over a year later, Dahal is on the march on the Postal Highway and Oli leads the government. Did the UML leaders follow up on the issues they raised in the report? As the party leads the government, are they addressing the issues they themselves raised?

People want to see measures to address their concerns. They aren’t convinced by the old approaches of traditional parties. Except for a few years in betweens, the Congress and the UML have been in the governing seat for the past 35 years and the Maoist Centre for two decades. Chiefs of these political parties have led the governments at least three times each. It doesn’t behoove their leaders to go to the people to shift blame. Such campaigns offer wonderful occasions to feel the public pulse. It’s a tragedy that most of them are being wasted.