Mumbai Election Officials Reach Out To Housing Colonies, Civil Society In Low Turnout Colaba

Authorities have been reaching out to the civil society members and representatives of housing societies in Mumbai's Colaba segment to appeal for increasing the voter turnout in the Nov. 20 Maharashtra assembly polls.

This comes after Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar last week expressed concern over urban apathy affecting the voter turnout.

In the 2019 state polls, south Mumbai's upmarket Colaba area saw a low voter turnout of about 40%.

In a bid to address the issue of urban apathy, the Election Commission has decided to hold voting this time on Wednesday (Nov. 20), with an aim to discourage voters from going on vacations if the exercise is clubbed with weekends.

The Election Commission has been flagging the issue of low polling in urban centres, including those like Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra, and has been taking a number of steps to increase voter awareness.

“Look at Gurgaon, look at Faridabad, recently, last election Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, Bengaluru South, Gandhinagar, Colaba, Pune, Thane… all are much below state averages of each state,” Kumar had said.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mumbai City Collector Sanjay Yadav said they have prepared a list of polling booths which witnessed low voter turnout in the last few elections and formulated as action plan as per the polling station.

"For increasing the voter turnout, an action plan has been prepared at the booth levels," he said when about steps taken to encourage electors to exercise their franchise.

Yadav said they are reaching out to the civil society members and officer-bearers of housing societies, apart from the booth-level assistants in the Colaba constituency to increase the voter turnout on the election day.

He said Colaba area has a large number of defence colonies, and hence they are also approaching defence officers and asking them to appeal to their staff to vote.

"We have done all the possible preparations so the voting percentage will be at par with the national and state average," Yadav said.

The Colaba assembly constituency has 2,64,931 voters, as per the EC data.