Voting percentage has not crossed 46% in last 20 years

As the high voltage campaign for Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation election came to an end on Sunday, the million dollar question before all political parties and 2,000 plus contestants now is whether voters will buck the trend of previous elections and come out in large number to use their franchise on February 21. 

The Maharashtra State Election Commission, which has launched several initiatives this time to encourage inert voters, has the same concern. This is despite the fact that voters in the recently concluded municipal council elections and the first phase of Zilla parishad polls have seen higher turnout in the range of 65-75%. 

Reason: the voting percentage in the commercial capital during civic polls has been between 42-49% since 1992, show statistics. Incidentally, the turnouts of Mumbai voters in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls has also been dismal.  

Dismal voter turnout has had analysts wondering for long. Half of the voters stay away from corporation elections even as BMC's policies have huge impact on daily life. They don’t even see that they suffer despite BMC’s annual budget of Rs 37,000 crore, making it the richest civic body in India.

Several theories have been proposed in the past to justify the poor voter turnout. These range from alienation of the elite from the democratic process to the disinterested urban middle class which finds little reason to vote.

But there is much more than meets the eye. Most youngsters DNA spoke to in last one month don’t know their ward number and name of the corporator. Though most of them knew their MLA and MP.  Besides, many of them didn’t know about the corporator's job and believe civic issues in Mumbai are so grave that they can’t be resolved irrespective of the party who comes to power.

This means local leaders fail to make a mark in people’s heart even after putting up big posters at every nook and corner of their area on the occasion of festivals, their birthdays, inauguration of toilets and so on.

Observers say a general alienation of youngsters from grassroots democracy is a cause of concern. They blame political parties for this situation. “Most candidates fielded by political parties in the civic polls are too local, have close ties with local builders and goons. They fail to instil trust in common voters and keep away from voting process,” say Pratibha Thakur, a banker from Andheri.  

Deepak Pawar, professor of politics, Mumbai University, blame citizens. “Urban middle class seems to have split personality. They blame politicians for every civic problem but never cast their vote in civic polls.”

Nevertheless, political parties expect higher turnout this time. Madhav Bhandari, BJP spokesperson says, “Since the fight is five to six corner, all parties try their best to get their voters to polling booths. This will result in higher turnout.” 

Nawab Malik, NCP leader also predicts a higher turnout though he cites a different reason. “Election Commission has deleted more than 25 lakh names from the voter rolls in the past two years. Polling percentage of Mumbai always appeared to be very low because of such a large number of dead and duplicate voters. A rise will be seen this time.”

Issue of corruption and mudslinging between two major players — BJP and Shiv Sena — may negatively effect the polling percentage, says Milind Ballal, a senior journalist. “Voting percentage was expected to go up this time but negative campaigns and verbal abuses by Shiv Sena and BJP leaders in the last two weeks have discouraged the people.”   

Increase in voting percentage will help BJP to score better than Sena, say observers.

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(Source: Maharashtra Election Commission)