Maharashtra assembly elections: Citizens’ groups stress on societies’ role in turnout

PUNE: Citizens’ groups in the state pressed for mobilizing the housing societies to reach out to residents to ensure that maximum people enrol themselves in the voters’ list ahead of the assembly elections and encourage them to vote.
With the chief electoral office proposing a 70% turnout in the forthcoming assembly elections, registered and unregistered societies should pitch in and mobilize their members, stressed the citizens’ groups working in the area of voters’ turnout in the state.
The turnout in the 2014 assembly elections in the state was just 3.58% more as compared to the 2009 state polls. According to the data available with the election office, the total percentage of votes polled in the Maharashtra assembly elections in 2014 was 63.08%. It was 59.5% in 2009.
Over the past five decades, the voting percentage has been above 60%. The only exception was in 1980, when the turnout was 53.3%.
Against this backdrop, the election officials also want the housing societies to pitch in to ensure a good turnout. A source said the officials in the chief electoral office were mobilizing all housing societies to ensure good turnout. They are also reminding the societies’ members about the cooperative department’s directive of 2012, wherein office-bearers have to make an audit of their respective societies and furnish a list of shifted, dead and new voters before July 31 every year.
“The directive is still relevant, and we are reminding the office-bearers of the housing societies to ensure 100% voting in the upcoming elections,” said Suhas Patwardhan, the vice-president of Maharashtra Cooperative Housing Society Federation.
He said nearly one lakh housing societies were registered with the cooperative department and many more were unregistered. The federation is reaching out to all the societies and asking their members to ensure high turnout.
Maithali Manakwad, the secretary of the Wanowadi Residents’ Forum, told TOI that they had started conducted meetings with housing societies to request them to enrol residents as well as check names in the voters’ list. “We had done the same exercise before the Lok Sabha elections,” said Manakwad.
V Citizens’ Action Network (VCAN), a partner of the chief electoral office in the state that helped in voter enrolment and voter turnout campaign, wants the society members to help the election office and ensure that the voters in their respective societies are registered. It also wants them to help residents find their names through the election website.
“The process is simple. If the society members can check the details, it will make a big difference to the turnout,” said Indrani Malkani, the chairperson of VCAN.