Civic polls: Societies get together to vote en bloc

The state election commission's direction to all municipal commissioners to grant polling booths in housing societies which have at least 1,000 voters is likely to change equations in the forthcoming civic polls.

Some housing societies and resident associations are planning to vote en masse for candidates promising to resolve their issues.

Thus far, candidates banked upon slum voters or communal vote banks to get elected. This also meant that they could ignore complaints made by sections of voters outside these vote-banks.

"Despite repeated complaints, local representatives did little to resolve our issues," said Jaypal Shetty, an activist of the F-North Citizens Federation. "Rather than complaining for the next five years, we have reached a consensus to vote for a single candidate." A decision on the candidate to be supported is expected to be reached in the next few days.

"The margin of victory in many cases is less than 500," Shetty said. "Thus, it would be a great opportunity for citizens to throw out sitting corporators and elect a good candidate for the city's development." In fact, in 2007, as many as 80 candidates won with a margin of 1,000 or fewer votes.