Workers, not leaders, help bring voters to polling booths

Nagpur: A senior citizen, M Joshi, suffering from paralysis, came all the way from Mumbai to cast his vote. When he reached Neeri Modern School with his relative, there was no wheelchair to carry him to the classroom, which was quite some distance away. It was then that two activists — Shashank Chobe and Balasaheb Gajbhiye — who were helping voters find their booths and polling stations, came to the rescue. The two carried him easily till the voting booth and also dropped him back to his vehicle.
At Jaitala, dominated by people from lower strata of society, many illiterate voters were finding it difficult to locate their polling centres. Chabu Thewan was helping them out in their task. Many voters couldn’t even read the instructions on the slip. Thewan, who has worked at the party’s table during polls since last two decades, becomes their guide and helped hundreds of them on Thursday.

Like them, workers from political parties play an important role in smooth conduct of democratic process and increasing the polling percentage. They’re engaged in this noble work, leaving their family and office work. They work not only on polling day but they’re busy for at least a month after announcement of elections.

These dedicated workers are engaged in many party activities like distribution of slips, participating in rallies, spreading awareness among voters and convincing them to vote. They also arrange to and fro travel facility for voters, in case they’re senior citizens or helpless women.

Though the Congress doesn’t have much of a cadre strength left after its bastion crumbled in 2014, the BJP seems to have a very organized structure, thanks to its affiliation with the RSS. The city-headquartered organization is known for its vast cadre strength and organized structure, which BJP has imbibed to a large extent.

“Our activists work almost round the clock for party work. Not only voters, but we also helped polling booth officials. At Vidya Vikas Vihar Public School near Jaiprakash Nagar, the polling officials were not provided even basic facilities. We provided them lunch and water,” said Uday Dable of BJP Legal Cell.

Some Congress activists like Rajesh Ghodmare, Nitin Borkar, Shrikant Nagbhidkar and Prashant Dhandge too worked at three to four booths near Jupiter Convent, Vivekanand Nagar and Sawarkar Nagar areas. “Though our cadre strength was less, we worked overtime to reach voters and managed to convince most of them to come out and exercise their franchise.”

Another BJP worker said they’ve formed units to take care of every section of the society. Under BJP, they run BJYM, Mahila Aghadi, Dalit Morcha, Kisan Morcha, Zopadpatti Aghadi, and others. “We’ve divided our areas and a corporator heads that unit. Before voting day, we make rounds at each and every home to identify voters. We help them if they don’t have election cards,” he says.

BJP volunteer Niraj Dontulwar adds that the BJP has developed an in-house app to identify booths of voters and it helped significantly on voting day. “The normal app was crashing constantly due to heavy demand, but we’ve managed to provide maximum information to the voters through our app,” he says.