Groups of men in white dhotis, bunches of women in colourful saris with their heads covered, grandmothers holding hands and the odd teenager in white-washed jeans – the frontier towns, villages and unauthorised colonies forming the electorate in the North-West Delhi constituency had them all and then some, when on Thursday, the citizens stepped out to vote for electing their future MP.
At Mongolpuri, which is mostly made up of slum clusters, the basic essentials were top-most on the minds of the voters. “Bijli-paani? We have all the problems you can think of, but I vote every time,” said Beena, a domestic worker who has come with her two daughters.
Rohini, one of the few upscale neighbourhoods in the entire constituency, had witnessed about 25 per cent voting till 10 a.m.
The landscape of Rithala, a mixture of shopping malls, upcoming apartment buildings and shanties, also provided a range of issues on which the people voted. “Sanitation is a major problem here,” said Dr. Sonal who brought her grandmother with her.
“We don’t get enough water, sometimes it comes for 10 minutes, sometimes not at all. We hope the politicians who promise us water keep their word,” said Pushpa, who had come with her family of five.
Bawana, a mix of unauthorised colonies and villages, also had queues at the polling booths around noon.
“The villagers have it good here, it is only us, the people who are forced to live in jhuggis whose drinking water is salty,” complained neighbours Rekha and Seema, saying they would want their MP to resolve these basic problems.
In Kanjhawala, a village where farmers have been fighting to get back their acquired land, the general grudge was that the governments “don’t really care about us”.
