Why spoil a Sunday to vote?

when good people don't vote, bad people get elected. there is an old vested interest in small voter turnouts. shady folk, given a ticket by shady interests, know that a crowded poll means defeat. the narrow, manipulated body of voters gets beaten by the honest good sense of a large, representative turnout. only the bad boys want you absent from the civic polls on sunday, february 10.therefore, don't fail to be present. that day, we shall choose who will decide two-thirds of our lives, or at least what happens in the city in some key matters, from water and sanitation, roads and pavements, health and education, bus transport, parks and gardens to stray animals and birth/death certificates. in the past few weeks, numerous citizen organisations have campaigned for a larger turnout than the shameful past, when only 40 per cent of those entitled to vote actually did so. the proportion plummeted to 15 per cent in some areas. the idea of the campaign was to make democracy function better in our town. vote out bad politics! political expediency and gain, not public interest, are the main principles in decision-making in the brihanmumbai municipal corporation (bmc). if politics are to blame for our troubles, then we must ask what will set those politics right. the answer is contained in the question. politics mean people. it's numbers that count. the whole edifice of democracy is founded on numbers. one vote brought down a government in delhi, one electoral college elected a bush instead of a gore to the white house. we must get our people numbers right in mumbai. fifty five per cent of the city's electorate is made up of dwellers in our so-called slums and 45 per cent of it resides in pukka housing, from chawls to apartment buildings, housing societies and colonies. while 70 per cent and more of the first category vote, only 20 per cent and less of the latter do so. whose needs, therefore, would be a politician's priorities, and whose needs would suffer? slums and middle class betrayed this is why political manifestos are populist, endlessly favouring the slum dweller, a huge and growing population, predictable in their support of their protectors and providers. that these promises are never realised is another matter. slums' needs are basic, numerous, urgent and betrayed. but they have become cynically politicised, used for votes, then forgotten. candidate after candidate and manifesto after manifesto have highlighted promises of new toilets, piped water and sewerage, lighting and water taps — always in the slums, with very little mention of middle class interest. yet it is the middle class whose tax money eventually pays for virtually everything that the bmc provides. yet it is this class whose needs are ignored. hence a resigned apathy prevails among them and they tend to vote thinly and scantily. vote for yourself citizens promoting a voters' celebration on sunday have always been asked, but whom shall we vote for? the simple answer is that it doesn't matter who. the vote cast is vital. that and, hopefully, a larger turnout of the middle classes, will call attention to them and their needs. substantially increasing the voting percentage from the ridiculous 15 per cent of the past will place the political decision-maker on notice. a cynic defines a politician as a man who grabs the money of the rich and the votes of the poor, offering to protect one from the other. it may be time for us to show the shortsighted politician that this will no longer do. the money of the rich must be put to the whole city's use. the votes of the poor must be earned by providing them the good things that flow from wise and honest investment of the rich man's tax money. we have a chance to change things on sunday. a good bmc can transform mumbai. you can transform it by electing good corporators on sunday.