‘Voter apathy hit citizens’ candidates’

Sukhada Tatke | TNN adapted from Times of India 20^th Feb 2012

The 2007 BMC election gave Mumbai its first citizens’ corporator. Encouraged, citizens’ groups fielded 79 candidates this time, but only one managed to sail through. While D’- Souza himself was defeated, no citizens’ candidate could garner a vote share close to what he polled in 2007.

An analysis of 2012 voting pattern data shows citizens’ candidates got an average of 300-500 votes. Only Harish Pandey got 1800 votes in Ward no. 1. Here is an example of voting trends:

Groups are busy analyzing what went wrong. Candidates who contested from Mumbai 227 polled an average of 200-300 votes, Loksatta candidates secured between 500-600 votes, while Mumbai Nagrik Manch and Mumbai Nagriksatta candidates won less than 400 votes.

Juhu’s ward no 63, which elected Adolf D’Souza in 2007, is an example of how voters preferred parties over citizens’ candidates this time. D’- Souza had then defeated Congress candidate Somshankar Sharma by a slender margin of 642 votes. This year, Vijay Thakre, Loksatta candidate from the ward, polled just 2,964 votes and finished fourth among five candidates. He lost to the BJP’s Dilip Patel (5,133).

So what exactly went wrong? “Last time there were 21 candidates in the constituency, which helped as votes got divided. This time, there were five candidates in the ward,” said Loksatta member Ruben Mascarenhas.

Activists say the bickering between citizens’ platforms, which continued till the last minute, contributed to the poor showing. D’Souza, who got 4,582 votes in 2007, himself polled just 1,191 votes in ward 60, where he contested this time. The same ward had Pankaj Khanvilkar of Mumbai 227, who secured 388 votes, but Shiv Sena candidate Sanjay Parmar won with 5,412 votes. Among the better performers were Nilima Thakur (backed by Mumbai 227) who got 3,403 votes in ward number 97, and Hina Shroff of ward 65 who polled 3,144 votes. The sole victorious citizens’ candidate, Makarand Narvekar, secured only 2,208 votes in ward 227.

The most infighting was in ward 182 which had Agnelo Fernandes (Mumbai 227), Joseph Gaikwad (Mumbai Nagrikmanch) and Herman Dias (Mumbai Nagriksatta).

But Aditya Paul of Mumbai Nagrikmanch said, “Infighting was irrelevant. We need a larger support base.” However, D’Souza blamed the apathy of the youth.