Mumbai polling below 50%

Terror attacks, job cuts and pay cuts due to economic slow down don't seem to bother Mumbaikars and satellite towns of Thane district which accommodates working class of Mumbai much as polling percentage has dropped by around 3.5 per cent and remained far below 50 per cent. The average voting percentage in six constituencies of Mumbai and four constituencies of Thane district was 43.52 per cent.

Perhaps continuation of the trend across the urban Maharashtra as voter turn out remained in mid-forties in cities like Pune, Nashik, Nagpur etc.

Four days of holidays on account of polls, Maharashtra Day on May 1st, followed by Saturday and Sunday seem to have played spoil sport despite high pitch campaign by not only political parties but also NGOs who roped in various celebrities from the world of Bollywood, Cricket and Industry to making appeal to Mumbaikars to ensure their vote counts.

It seems lure of unwinding on beaches of Kokan and Goa or hills of Mahabaleshwar and Matheran proved to be far more attraction for Mumbaikars than attraction of exercising their constitutional right and elect the government which will take care of issues like constant terror attacks on city and economic slow down.

The battle of South Mumbai was most keenly watched as the terrorist had targeted this constituency just seven months back and which made likes Mira Sanyal, country head of ABN Amro Bank to jump in to electoral fray, registered only 43.33 per cent of polling marginal drop over 2004 when polling percentage was 44.22.

In another high profile constituency of Mumbai North Central where Congress candidate and sitting MP Priya Dutt is taking on prominent lawyer and BJP's candidate Mahesh Jethmalni saw a voters turn out of 41.82. In 2004 this constituency had seen polling percentages 49.8 but these figures are not comparable as in 2004 this constituency also had some parts of island city now it has become completely suburban in nature.

In the constituency of Mumbai North where former union minister Ram Naik is trying to redeem himself of 2004 defeat at the hands of film star and Congress candidate Govinda registered the polling percentage of 46.49 also marginal drop compared to last time. However this time Naik is taking on former Shiv Sainik Sanjay Nirupam who is Congress candidate.

The neighboring Thane district got maximum benefit of the delimitation exercise as number of constituencies doubled in this district to go to four. Despite creation of small constituencies and candidates who can be identified with locality (in 2004 Thane was largest constituency as far as total number of voters concern with around 52 lakh votes) it failed to arouse interest of Thankers in poll process as polling percentage remained well below 50 per cent.

The highest polling was recorded in Palghar scheduled tribe reserve seat with 46.8 percent voters exercising their franchise.

Speaking with Business Standard a spokesman of state Congress and MLC Sanjay Dutt said, the polling percentage is according to trends from previous elections, when there are elections for state assembly we see jump of five to seven per cent in polling and when there are elections for local self government institute they go up by 10 to 12 per cent.

BJP Spokesman Madhav Bhandari blamed it on faulty electoral rolls and said, we found out entire housing societies or colonies are deleted from the rolls or person living one suburbs name figuring in the voters list of some other suburbs.

Besides this due to sustain campaign of BJP, we managed to delete names around 1.5 million voters which were either bogus or those of the Bangladeshis, which might have also affected voter turn out, he added. However apathy of educated middle class toward democratic process must be cause of concern for all political parties, he observed.

Polling percentage in the 10 constituencies which went to poll on April 30th Mumbai South-43.33%, Mumbai South Central-41.85%, Mumbai North Central-41.82%, Mumbai North East-42.28%, Mumbai North West-49.15%, Mumbai North-44.7%, Thane-41.2 %, Kalyan-41.2%, Bhiwandi-38.48 and Palghar-46.8%.