Citizen groups, societies, do-gooders lend a hand on Polling Day

Citizen groups and students in Mumbai actively mobilized voters on Polling Day, helping seniors, distributing water, and ensuring high turnout.

MUMBAI: Polling Day saw citizen groups, residents and students in active mode, mobilising neighbours, friends and family to step out to cast their vote, reaching out to help senior and supersenior citizens get to polling booths, helping find names on the voter lists and distributing water and buttermilk to voters standing in serpentine queues in the blazing heat.

Mumbai, India. May 20, 2024: People queue up to vote outside a polling station in the Ghatkopar area during the fifth phase of national elections in Mumbai. May 2024. (Photo by Raju Shinde/HT Photo)

Citizen group Mumbai North Citizens District Forum (MNCDF) spread itself far and wide, making seven teams for each constituency in Mumbai, plus Thane. In a prearranged engagement with residents’ groups in several areas, it circulated messages for people in need of help. “We helped a lot of people fish out their reference slips with their polling booth number and serial number online, if they couldn’t find it for whatever reason, like having lost their voter card or not received the voter’s slip,” said MNCDF founder Trivankumar Karnani. “Some of us picked and dropped off senior citizens to polling booths, distributed water. We helped in whatever way we could.”

Similarly, to ensure maximum turnout for voting, Dreams Society at Bhandup systematically worked to ensure that more than 75% voted from the society. The society has 2,225 flats and around 3,500 voters. “To get a bigger turnout, on Sunday night we arranged a meeting of society members along with the youth of the society and formed 16 teams of five members each for the campaign,” said Shridhar Deshpande. “Our teams visited every home and encouraged people to step out and vote. We also provided facilities like wheelchairs.”

Prasad Viswanathan, founding member and general secretary of the Jaago Nehru Nagar Resident Welfare Association, which comprises 155 buildings, said that the association broadcast voter turnouts every three hours on its WhatsApp group which has 600 members. “That was our way of prompting people since a low voter turnout does work on the psyche and pushes people to step out and vote,” said Viswanathan. “We also mentioned that we could arrange for autos and cars to take senior citizens and the physically challenged to polling booths.”

Bhavesh Sadhnani, 32, an associate of MNCDF, stepped in to lend a helping hand to senior citizens, providing at least 15 of them with transportation and guidance. “I voted early in the morning and had circulated a message beforehand, offering help to any senior unable to reach their booth,” he said. He made several trips, helping seniors navigate the process more efficiently and even provided them with water. “A few mentioned that they had registered for doorstep voting and received calls that someone would come to their house, but when nobody arrived, these senior citizens asked for my help to vote,” he said.

School students who were not part of the elections also contributed by helping people find their names on the voters list. Class 10 students from Mohite Patil High School, Mankhurd, distributed buttermilk to voters and polling booth workers. Some students at Mulund were also seen distributing energy drinks to voters outside the polling booths.