BMC polls: One family, different polling booths

Mrs Joseph was aghast. Her polling booth was at ‘OLPS’ aka ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Succour High School’, but her husband’s was a short distance away — at the Saraswati Vidyalaya in Chembur.

“How can we have two separate voting booths?” she wondered after casting her vote. Her husband had already voted in the morning before heading for work, while Mrs Joseph cast her ballot in the early afternoon.

Barring minor hiccups of the kind faced by Mrs Joseph, voting itself went off quite smoothly at OLPS. People turned up, often as part of a large family outing, and cast their vote. Cops sitting at every station said it was a pleasant day, helped no doubt by the cool February wind that kept the heat at bay.

In Kurla, Baban Kalambe was upset. He had been told that his identity card would not do; he needed either a PAN card or a passport or a driver’s licence. And Kalambe had only his employee state insurance card. “I guess it was my fault,” he rued.

“I had been told to bring my PAN card along, but I forgot.”
He said he did not want to go home and come back again. So, he joined the ranks of those who did not cast their votes. “I wish they would allow me. My photograph and name is there on the voters’ list and my present identity card also matches, but the officials are adamant.”

At Sion, Mayank Desai was getting into an auto. He hadn’t voted and was keen on getting back to his home at Chunabhatti before stepping out to vote. “I have taken a half-day off from office so that I can vote and I will vote,” he said.

At the Jain Society in Sion, a society that screams ‘middle-class’, laptops ruled the roost. As voters lined up to find their polling station, rather than labour through the voters’ list, activists of a particular party readily logged online to help them. Laptop-toting party workers were spotted at Chembur, but none in Kurla.