45 percent voting in Mumbai civic elections

In a show of voter apathy, Mumbai marked a turnout of 45 percent in elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest civic body in India.

A top civic official, however, said that the voter percentage has gone up by three percent as compared to 2007.

“This year, Mumbai has seen voting from nearly 43.6 lakh persons as against 38 lakh voters in the 2007 municipal elections. The voter turnout this time is about 45 percent,” BMC Commissioner Subodh Kumar told reporters here.

Kumar said that this year there were more voter registrations. “During the 2007 municipal elections, Mumbai had 83.88 lakh registered voters. This year, the number has gone up by around 19 lakh taking the total to 1.03 crore,” he said.

Kumar said that the rise in number of registered voters may be owing to more awareness. “The population per se has not gone up, but more people are coming forward to register themselves as voters,” he said.

Kumar said that the chances of bogus voting was minimal. “There might be dummy names or duplicate names in the voting lists, but it is unlikely that they cast their votes twice,” he said.

Along with Mumbai, nine other municipal corporations went to polls Thursday with a total electorate of 3.5 crore people.

Over 25,000 security personnel had been deployed in Mumbai, the biggest corporation going to polls Thursday. Around 8,326 voting centres were set up across the city, with 41,000 municipal officers on duty.