Ahead of BMC polls in 2017, city gets 94,000 new voters

MUMBAI : Around 94,000 citizens registered themselves as new voters last month in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) special enrollment drive for the

MUMBAI : Around 94,000 citizens registered themselves as new voters last month in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) special enrollment drive for the 2017 elections.

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The drive, which started on September 15, culminated on October 14.

According to the data, 77,000 citizens from the eastern and western suburbs and around 17,000 citizens from the island city registered as new voters. Another 20,000 citizens applied to get their name, address and other details changed.

“We raised awareness among citizens through the media, posters and also got Marathi film actors to spread the message in the past few months,” said a senior civic official.

Before the drive, only 67 per cent of Mumbai’s population or 91 lakh people were registered as voters. To attract more voters, the BMC announced cash prizes worth Rs10,000 for co-operative housing societies that register the maximum number of voters. Even colleges that conducted successful drives to register new voters are to be awarded. “The data will soon be analysed to reward the societies,” the official added. The civic body will now sort voters in their respective wards. The city underwent delimitation recently, as part of which the 227 electoral wards were re-shuffled. The growing population in the suburbs and the dipping population in the island city were considered while redrawing the maps. The official said the process will take about 2-3 months. The the BMC will deploy more than 50,000 administrative officials on election duty. According to the EC directives, the BMC is expected to complete the entire process by March 8, 2017.