Come voting day, and there is no dearth of freeloaders. If political parties are ready to distribute food, then voters are not shying away from asking for more.
“See, I have just voted. Give me that now,” said a voter at Khar, pointing at the biryani packets stacked up in the office of one of the candidates. “No, no. Not veg and not just one. We are five at home,” he said, this time pointing at his 11-year-old son. The activist distributing the packet helplessly handed him four more packets of biryani.
Similar scenes played out at a number of offices of political parties and various polling booths in the western suburbs of Bandra, Khar and Santa Cruz on Thursday — lunch packets ready to be served to polling agents and voters, autos parked nearby to rush voters to polling booths and huddled-up party workers discussing strategies to get votes by hook or by crook.
There were others, though, who didn’t find the parties’ approach palatable. Usually meek, such voters suddenly found their voice on the voting day, perhaps emboldened by the realisation the candidates’ fate was in their hands. “Why are you sitting in the office when you can’t even find my name on the voters’ list?” a person shouted at a saffron ‘bhai’ sitting with the list. The ‘bhai’ in question probably hadn’t apologised to anybody in his entire life, but on Thursday, he just had to.
By afternoon, party workers became more active, checking up on those areas which reported poor voting. The possibilities of flexing political muscles and bribing were spattered in their conversations.
“I am sending three guys there with a car and an auto. Bring everyone out. What? One- lakh rupees for 50 people? Are you mad? Forget it. I am not sending anybody,” balked the husband of a woman candidate into his phone, while winking at this correspondent.
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