Fuzzy Logic: Can The Problem Of Urban Apathy Towards Voting Be Solved?

The announcement by the Election Commission of India on Tuesday about the elections in Maharashtra was eagerly welcomed by the entire nation. Maharashtra is India’s most industrialised state and second largest in terms of its number of seats in India’s parliament. What everybody was keen to know was whether the election in Maharashtra will happen in two phases or a single phase. It became obvious that the Election Commission has decided to hold the election for 288 constituencies of Maharashtra in a single phase. How is this going to affect the prospects of political parties?

There was a lot of speculation previously about how the election results for the Lok Sabha in Maharashtra got affected because it was held in five phases. Many BJP leaders speaking with journalists expressed the view that they felt that there was voter fatigue setting in during the Lok Sabha polls because it was spread over such a long time. The original idea was that all parties should get enough time and the election commission should also get enough space to organise elections in such a large state. However as several rounds of polling happened, the percentage of polling dropped. Mumbai city which went to the polls in the last stage witnessed minimum voting.

The elections being spread over five phases resulted in polling becoming a tedious exercise for the voters. It now seems that the Election Commission wants to correct this and hold polls in a process that seems to be happening much faster. The EC especially mentioned the words “urban apathy”, to describe how the urban middle and upper middle class seems to be showing lower and lower interest in the polling process. The commission obviously wants to change this situation.

However, can the disinterest among voters be attributed only to elections being held in multiple phases? The obvious answer is no! It seems that the urban middle class and upper middle class in cities like Mumbai lost interest in politics mainly because of the indiscriminate crossover by politicians from one party to another, that has been seen in the last two or three years. Leaders jumping from one side to another, alliances made without any concentration of ideology, and other similar factors have affected voters’ interest in the overall electoral process. It seems that the voters are not interested in who is the candidate from which party, because all that has become very transient.

One party in Maharashtra has taken the issue to the Supreme Court but the decision about whether the defections of some MLAs was legitimate or not is still pending. The EC allotting the original symbol of one party which split, to one of the factions, was also unprecedented. Barring a few examples in most cases, when parties split the EC has always given new symbols to the factions. All these things have also affected the voters’ morale. It now seems that it is a challenge for the EC to get voters out of their houses and make them vote. The chief election commissioner looked very concerned about this subject. He also mentioned that the polling day has been deliberately kept on a mid-week day so that voters are not encouraged to take a long weekend and go away on holiday. The question now is whether Maharashtra will see a change in the voters’ attitude, especially in the urban areas.

It is very obvious that in urban areas the voting is going to be low and that makes it clear that the winning margin for any candidate is going to be very small. Unlike any other large state anywhere in India, Maharashtra now has at least six political parties fielding candidates. The BJP, the Congress, two factions of the Shiv Sena and two factions of the NCP will field candidates in the election. Apart from this there will be the third front and there will be Raj Thackeray’s MNS. In addition there are going to be independent candidates and rebels from some of these parties. This means there could be eight or nine candidates in every constituency making it difficult for all of them to get a clear majority. Considering this situation if the pulling percentage in cities like Mumbai and Pune is low it will create further problems for the candidates and political parties.

Politically speaking it is interesting to figure out how the problem of urban apathy needs to be addressed in the interest of the urban population. Maharashtra now has almost 45% of its population living in urban areas. But if the politicians seeing that the urban population seems apathetic towards voting, and this trend continues, it will make them think that the urban population does not matter any more for their political future. This will make them focus only on rural areas and ignore urban planning and urban development. In fact this trend is already seen among some of the top politicians. It is in the interest of the citizens of Mumbai, Pune, Thane and other urban areas to come out in large numbers and vote in this Assembly election. The EC seems to have taken the right step by holding the elections midweek, and in a single phase so that there is a sense that the process is happening quickly without giving rise to fatigue. Alert citizens, civic organisations and the media should play a role in creating awareness about how important it is for voters to come out and vote.

Rohit Chandavarkar is a senior journalist who has worked for 31 years with various leading newspaper brands and television channels in Mumbai and Pune