City Elections
I am resisting to switch on the television to know the election results in Mumbai. The reason being I can completely feel the victory and the loss of parties in Dadar. This area is the most politically active part of Maharashtra. Its like the Marathi heartland. The Shiv Sena and MNS are both headquartered here. I can hear the drum beats and see the flags swirling. When I went to drop the children, all by lanes were blocked to celebrate victory. Cops in full attendance. People from my building and some of them are senior office bearers in the party were all out there at the chowk. The festivities are on in full swing. The party loosing seats had a silence at their offices, no music. People standing as if for a funeral. The guys winning around are all new goons into politics. The music and the Band Baja and the crackers have increased. Which means more good news for this party.
I managed to cast my vote at around 5.25pm. I have all my friends from different parts of the country to thank for and one particular friends message at $ 45pm urging me to go to vote as the booths were open till 5 30 pm. I had checked that my voting slip had not come to the new building or the earlier one where we lived. I checked yesterday at noon also. I came to know I can go to the place where my earlier building people are voting. I ran out at five leaving the kids with the maid who had just walked in. The roads were blocked do i walked the distance and reached the pooling booth. Checked the roster outside, two helpful young boys asked me to rush to my earlier bldg to get the number. I ran back and luckily they had a laptop where they could hunt my name and the id number. Other places was physical big rosters to look for one s name. They people were kind enough to say it was %@) and I needed to ferried to the booth. Walking would take ten minutes. I was dropped two buildings away and I ran in. The cops asked the booth number as the venue had two booths, then some lady found my number and sent me to the next booth. I got inked and I voted. It was such a touch and go situation. After long, I had an adrenalin high. The newspapers, NGOs were doing a big job of making voters aware of their rights, constituencies, candidates and protest votes. After all this Mumbai did not go to vote.
The so called youthful friends of mine in their early twenties did not vote as according to them no one is worthy. Protest vote is scary as no one wants to be identified. The chawls around were promised a revamped gym and office for a certain amount by a party. Then they did a superficial job. Followed by which the other party went and offered cash to all. The chawl has a Marathi and Gujarati crowd. All of them work in the cleaning department in the municipal corporation. They are responsible for garbage disposal and cleanliness of the city.The parties have played the local vs outsider card here and then the broken off faction has tried to take the outsider vote as it is important too. My so called rich friends, business people did not go to vote and I would have been in the same category but got saved by some good souls.
The win of certain candidates in this area is not sitting well with me. This game is at a level which we cant fathom completely. But one thing is for sure, if all had gone to vote, the people would have chosen someone. Here it became a cash for vote where the candidates woo the poor only coz the rich do not vote.I think these people have no business of cribbing about our city. We have roads, water, electricity and schools, which cannot be said for so many cities in India. Be intelligent enough to think, all this urban rich people, your mom or wife doesn't go to a river to fetch water, it is provided by the government. Your fancy cars can move because the government built roads or you d still be on bullock carts. Shame on you, the English Speaking, newspaper reading, educated, urban, rich man who owns fancy mobiles, laptops and cars, if you did not vote.
I managed to cast my vote at around 5.25pm. I have all my friends from different parts of the country to thank for and one particular friends message at $ 45pm urging me to go to vote as the booths were open till 5 30 pm. I had checked that my voting slip had not come to the new building or the earlier one where we lived. I checked yesterday at noon also. I came to know I can go to the place where my earlier building people are voting. I ran out at five leaving the kids with the maid who had just walked in. The roads were blocked do i walked the distance and reached the pooling booth. Checked the roster outside, two helpful young boys asked me to rush to my earlier bldg to get the number. I ran back and luckily they had a laptop where they could hunt my name and the id number. Other places was physical big rosters to look for one s name. They people were kind enough to say it was %@) and I needed to ferried to the booth. Walking would take ten minutes. I was dropped two buildings away and I ran in. The cops asked the booth number as the venue had two booths, then some lady found my number and sent me to the next booth. I got inked and I voted. It was such a touch and go situation. After long, I had an adrenalin high. The newspapers, NGOs were doing a big job of making voters aware of their rights, constituencies, candidates and protest votes. After all this Mumbai did not go to vote.
The so called youthful friends of mine in their early twenties did not vote as according to them no one is worthy. Protest vote is scary as no one wants to be identified. The chawls around were promised a revamped gym and office for a certain amount by a party. Then they did a superficial job. Followed by which the other party went and offered cash to all. The chawl has a Marathi and Gujarati crowd. All of them work in the cleaning department in the municipal corporation. They are responsible for garbage disposal and cleanliness of the city.The parties have played the local vs outsider card here and then the broken off faction has tried to take the outsider vote as it is important too. My so called rich friends, business people did not go to vote and I would have been in the same category but got saved by some good souls.
The win of certain candidates in this area is not sitting well with me. This game is at a level which we cant fathom completely. But one thing is for sure, if all had gone to vote, the people would have chosen someone. Here it became a cash for vote where the candidates woo the poor only coz the rich do not vote.I think these people have no business of cribbing about our city. We have roads, water, electricity and schools, which cannot be said for so many cities in India. Be intelligent enough to think, all this urban rich people, your mom or wife doesn't go to a river to fetch water, it is provided by the government. Your fancy cars can move because the government built roads or you d still be on bullock carts. Shame on you, the English Speaking, newspaper reading, educated, urban, rich man who owns fancy mobiles, laptops and cars, if you did not vote.
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