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They came for answers, went home dejected

It was meant to be of the citizens, for the citizens and by the citizens. Instead, it turned out to be a ‘tamasha’ by netas and their supporters.

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It was meant to be of the citizens, for the citizens and by the citizens. Instead, it turned out to be a ‘tamasha’ by netas and their supporters. Sunday marked the beginning of the candidates of various LS constituencies in the city meeting their respective constituents.

The inaugural venue was South Mumbai — the constituency where two sitting MPs, Milind Deora of Congress and Mohan Rawle of Shiv Sena, will be in the fray owing to delimitation. The meeting was organised by the Malabar Hill Residents’ Association (MHRA) and SIGNATURE (Society for Improvement of Greenery and Nature), along with 11 more associations. The idea was to have an interactive session to help citizens know their candidates better, but the politicians had another idea.

Instead of interacting with the citizens, the candidates trumpeted their “achievements”, campaigned for votes and traded allegations. The chaos that erupted was described by Gamdevi resident Nargish Kanga as, “Tamasha that we get to see in the Parliament.”

Worli resident Debolina Chakraborty, who had wanted to pose the candidates a question, but didn’t get the chance, said, “This is a joke in the name of meeting the candidates. Everyone is just shouting and promoting themselves.”

Chaos first erupted over the use of Marathi as the medium of interaction. A statement by a moderator, that the languages most people understand - English and Hindi — be used, triggered outrage among the MNS supporters. With Shiv Sena and Congress supporters joining the fray, all hell broke loose.

MNS candidate Bala Nandgaonkar said that his priority would be “maintaining communal harmony and thinking globally, working locally.” But the cosmopolitan crowd of South Mumbai was not all for it. They asked Nandgaonkar, “Why should migrants from UP and Bihar be blamed for the failure of elected representatives to provide basic amenities to the locals?” Deora and Rawle could not answer any question because of the continuous shouting by the MNS supporters.

Sena and Congress supporters went at each other after Rawle circulated a letter signed by NSG guards, which thanked his party for support and lauded him as the only “visible MP” during the 26/11 terror attacks. Independent candidate Meera Sanyal stoked the fire by alleging that Sena and Congress candidates had “altered” their manifestos after seeing her’s. “I am in the fray because the sitting MP has not done anything for the citizens,” she said.

“We asked the candidates to pacify their supporters, but were told to do it ourselves,” said Dr Nilesh Baxi, a moderator.

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