Mumbaikars will exercise their right to vote for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday, but have political parties completely ignored the most burning issue, making only superficial promises?

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A detailed analysis of manifestos of the grand alliance of Shiv Sena, Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and the united front of Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) by Pani Haq Samiti, an NGO working in the water sector, has shown that none of these parties have even bothered to tackle the issue of water scarcity seriously or give practical suggestions to solve the problem.

“If you study the manifestos of these parties, they are stressing upon building new dams to bring more water to the city. But the problem lies with the water distribution system, water leakage and unequal distribution of water. None of these manifestos have even mentioned these real problems,” said Sitaram Shelar of Pani Haq Samiti.

Shelar added that building dams and digging roads for water tunnels means more contracts will be given and the real issue will be sidelined. “Around 25-30 lakh of Mumbaikars live in slums. While in some places, water supply is erratic, in others, there is no water at all. None of the parties has addressed this large population,” he said, adding that instead of voting for ruling parties, people should elect those local candidates who are more in touch with their concerns.

A Sena leader claimed that his party reached a consensus on the manifesto after much discussion and consideration of all aspects of water scarcity. In reality, the manifesto of the Sena, BJP and RPI alliance reveals that they elaborated on new projects, but only made passing comments on stopping water wastage. The same can be said about the Congress-NCP manifesto.