It took a lot of effort to convince the candidates of the three main Political Parties fighting the MCD Elections and their mentors to come on a common platform and face the electorate of GK 2. Having crossed that bridge, it was indeed sad and pathetic that the interactive session at the Arya Samaj Mandir witnessed the most dismal turn out of residents. In fact, the political party workers outnumbered the residents.
For long Political parties have realised that GK2 as a Vote Bank, does not matter and this was proved with the official figures of the Voter turnout on the Election Day. This is in spite of the fact that GK-2 residents are among the high tax payers and expect good civic services in return.
Residents have been crying and expressing their anguish over the apathy of the Elected Representatives of not paying enough attention to the Development issues in the Colony. Lack of cleanliness of both front and back lanes, inadequacies in garbage collection, lack of pruning of trees, unattended Parks, Broken Roads, Overflowing sewers, in- operative street lights, massive and blatant encroachments and a general lack of hygiene in the Colony are the issues bothering us for a long time.
Perhaps the Country’s Governance has a direct link to Voter turnout. While that Rural turn outs is largely influenced by greater emphasis on group mobilization, the under privileged Urban societies still need politicians to give boost to certain services. The well-off society like ours in GK 2 has by and large insulated itself from Civic non- Governance as they don’t have much incentive to take the effort to exercise their franchise. Yet this was the Election where the participation of the well-off society was needed to prove that the right to vote can bring the real change in Governance.
Sadly the Electorate of our colony displayed an extreme sense of indifference towards participation in this democratic exercise. For the first time in many years we had a candidate from GK2 who had her pulse on the issues plaguing our colony but did not receive the desired support from the colony residents. Sad to say, this is how the turnout had also been in the Welfare Association Elections and in both cases the Residents are to blame and consequently are the sufferers. I urge our fellow Residents to use their vote as a tool to enforce accountability in governance rather than abstaining from voting thereby failing to discharge their fundamental duty as a citizen.
by Rajiv Kumar (9871062708)
