BMC Elections 2017 will see citizen activists also in fray

Inorder to give the people of Mumbai an alternate option, that of selecting from other than regular political party candidates, citizen activists from various parts of Mumbai have started weighing their options and are planning various strategies of entering the political arena in the upcoming BMC Elections 2017.

 

Apart from some of the known faces who contested the civic elections last year, a few residential associations are also planning to put up new contenders and their preparations are slowly gathering momentum.

 

During BMC Elections 2012, only one candidate out of 79 candidates fielded by different citizen groups managed to win. Makarand Narwekar, an advocate and currently the corporator from Colaba, won with a margin of around 1,400 votes. He is planning to contest again. “While the ALMs (advanced locality managements) in Colaba will definitely field a candidate, they are yet to take a final decision. But if given the choice, I would definitely like to contest again,” said Narwekar.

 

Another experienced candidate Hina Shroff, who had contested from Vile Parle as part of Mumbai Nagrik Manch in the 2012 civic polls, is also planning to try her luck again. She, however, said the delimitation process had included very congested areas like the Vile Parle railway station and parts of Juhu Koliwada. “These areas are very crowded and it makes campaigning extremely difficult.

 

RTI activist Bhaskar Prabhu, who also intends to contest, is looking for the appropriate ward since his ward has been reserved for women. “Though I plan to contest, after delimitation, the area that I have worked in now includes people from a different locality where no one knows me. We are surveying F North and F South wards to examine our chances in those areas,” he said.

 

Resident associations from Govandi and Chembur are also joining the election fray and are planning to field three candidates. Rajkumar Sharma, president of ALMANAC, the federation of ALMs in Chembur, said delimitation of the wards had spelt good news for the people. “As citizen groups, we have certain limitations like financial constraints that the political parties would not be inhibited by. We are planning to field candidates from three wards including Cheda Nagar. While we have finalised one of the candidates, we are still considering the best option for the other two depending on the reservations,” he said.

 

A few groups, though sure of fielding at least one candidate, are still in the initial stages of their planning. Members of the gaothan community strongly feel a leader from among them would be able to bring about active change and improve their standard of living.

 

Citing the performance of citizen candidates last time, some groups, however, said they would prefer to lend their support to political parties. Members of Friends of Dadar said their support would go to the MNS.