Citizen groups plan to push voters to the booths

With 10 days left for the assembly elections, residents’ associations across the city have come up with plans to help voters and ensure a high voter turnout. They have already come up with a helpline which will provide a white paper on candidates that will give a comparison of criminal records, if any, and assets of the candidates in the fray.

They are also taking the help of students to ensure that their parents would come out and vote on the D-day.

“There is a lot of confusion in areas like Chembur. Some areas come under Kurla. So we are giving such details of the constituencies and candidates in our fortnightly paper,” said V Sangole of Pestom Sagar advanced locality management (ALM).

In Mahim, the Dargah Street ALM is planning to go to schools and talk to principals and students to ask parents to come out and vote. “We want children to prepare a note for their parents saying ‘our future is in your hands, so make a right choice’,” said Anwar Khan, president of the ALM. The youth of the city are also playing a role in the campaign by helping to avoid bogus voting by deleting names of residents who are dead or have moved out,” said Willie Shirsat, president, Borivli Dahisar Jagruk Nagrik Manch.

In some constituencies, residents have formed an umbrella group to take on election-related issues in a structured manner. Mumbai Election Watch (MEW), a group formed for constituencies in Colaba region, has distributed 2,000 pamphlets among the residents. “They dealt with the voters’ registration processes, information on an MLA’s job, a charter of the city’s demands and a report card of the contestants,” said Neera Punj, an MEW member.

The white paper on candidates is jointly done by AGNI and ADF, two NGOs, which will analyse affidavits filed by the candidates when they file their nominations and inform the residents. “We are giving a comparison on criminal records and assets of candidates,” said Shard Kumar, a trustee of AGNI. Associations like ALMANAC in Chembur have set up a helpline to inform voters about their booth and candidates.