Civic polls: No road shows, please, locals tell netas

With less than a week left to campaign for BMC elections, candidates are employing every possible trick there is to reach out to the voters, including door-to-door meetings, public rallies and road shows.

However, not all the politicos’ ways are acceptable to the urban electorate. In fact, while the electorate is okay with the door-to-door meetings and public gatherings, there’s a growing demand that candidates should refrain from road shows paralysing vehicular movement for hours.

While suggesting that politicos resort to other ways of communicating with the masses, Mulund resident Suresh Prabhu says, “It will be great if politicians avoid rallies in the run-up to the polls. When politicos reach out to voters, they should see to it that the electorate, which matters the most during polls, is not inconvenienced.” Instead of road shows, which lead to traffic snarls, Prabhu suggests politicians should emphasise small meetings with housing society members for which they can take to the available grounds.

Considering that most road shows have participants hailing from areas other than the concerned ward, another resident, not wishing to be named, said, “If they don’t have a role in the ward’s development, why should such people come and talk/slogan about its future over the next five years? That crowd is not going to convert into votes for the candidate anyways. So, why bring them on street and affect traffic for some hours?”

DK Kossambe, chief of NGO Inspired Bharat Action Forum said grounds should be made available to parties for political rallies, while “politicians organising road shows despite having permission to hold public gatherings on grounds sahould be shunned”.

Interestingly, the high court recently denied MNS the permission to hold a public meet at Dadar’s Shivaji Park.

While residents push for no traffic problems due to road shows, politicians maintain they do follow traffic norms while holding a road show and ensure commuters are not inconvenienced. “Before organising any rally, we take due permission from the traffic police. We also take routes which cops feel are apt so no traffic issues crop up. Even when a rally goes on, we ask activists to be on either side of a road so vehicular movement is not affected,” Shiv Sena secretary Anil Desai said.