With people leaving Mumbai, who'll vote?

The main challenge for political parties in Mumbai is how to get people to vote on election day as the polls are being held bang in the middle of the summer vacation.

The main challenge for political parties in Mumbai is how to get people to vote on election day as the polls are being held bang in the middle of the summer vacation.

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As trains leaving Mumbai fill up for the two summer months, candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls are feverishly scratching their heads and reworking their calculations.

"Our main priority is to get people out to vote," says Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for the South Mumbai seat and union minister Jayawantiben Mehta.

"The voting percent here is the lowest in the city," adds her rival and Congress Party candidate Milind Deora.

Both Mehta and Deora have been jointly participating in campaigns to get people to vote.

Competition is even more intense in the suburbs, home to a large number of migrants. In North Mumbai comprising the Vasai-Virar areas, Thane, and even the slums of Bandra will see an exodus of migrants.

Only the voters are not buying their promises. "There is no shortfall in train bookings during the summer," says a spokesperson for Central Railway. The railways have added more than 740 `summer specials' to the regular trains connecting Mumbai. About a hundred trains will leave for northern India in the months of April and May.

The north Indian population is the single biggest vote block accounting for about four million voters. Candidates like Nirupam, actor Govinda and others who are banking on this block are therefore worried.

Already the crowds are thronging train stations like the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in downtown Mumbai and the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Central Mumbai to get back to their native places for the holidays. The next fortnight will see housing complexes in the city empty out as a couple of million Mumbaiites head out of the city.