When author Harini Srinivasan turned up at the Club House polling booth in Gurugram’s Central Park in Sector 42 on Saturday to cast her vote for the Haryana Assembly Election, the poor infrastructure of the Millennium City was at the top of her mind.
Among the first few to have exercised her franchise early in the day, Ms. Srinivsan said there was a lot to be improved on the infrastructure front in Gurugram, and this was one issue on which she had cast her vote.
Also Read: Haryana Assembly elections Highlights: Haryana records over 60% polling till 5 p.m.
“See the condition of the roads,” Ms. Srinivasan, a former civil servant, pointed out, adding that “every time it rains there is water-logging”.
She, however, praised the effort of the district administration to set up a polling booth inside her group housing society premises for the first time, saying that it was “extremely convenient”. Earlier, she had to drive to a polling booth in DLF Phase-5, but today it was just two minutes away from her house. “Shame on people, if they still don’t come out to wait,” she remarked.
And it was not just her, but many residents staying in the luxury apartments in the Gururgram’s upmarket Golf Course road area had inadequate infrastructure, traffic jams, women safety, and poor traffic management on top of their agendas as they turned out to vote.
Ravi Shankar, who runs an NGO, said Gurugram contributed the maximum revenue to the State exchequer, but the authorities also need to take a look at the city’s infrastructure. “It is called the ‘Millennium City’, but see the state of infrastructure,” he quipped.
Stepping out of a polling booth in DLF Phase-5’s Lancers International School in Sector 53, Kavita Gupta, a professor at a private university, said Gurugram, of late, had turned into a civic mess with the municipal and construction waste piling up on roadsides across the city. She said that cities like Panchkula and Karnal in Haryana fared better than Gurugram on waste management.
For the Sharmas, a couple from an adjoining condominium, traffic management was the biggest concern, but no one seemed to be addressing it. “It takes me 45 minutes to reach home from the office which is just 4-5 km away from my condominium. In the evening, the traffic just crawls. Even Noida is better on this front,” Murlikant Sharma, a management professional, said.
A resident of DLF Wellington Estate, Public Relations professional Anup Sharma, stressed inclusive development saying the authorities should spare a thought for the less-privileged as well and ensure basic amenities for them also. “Though we staying inside gated communities lead comfortable lives, our helps, chauffeurs and other people from weaker sections in the city don’t have access to basic amenities like water and electricity,” Mr. Sharma said.
His wife Richa, 42, said she had cast her vote on the issue of “women’s safety”. “Though the situation has improved a lot in Gurugram over the past decade, I, even at this age, feel insecure to go out after 10 p.m. I can’t let my teenage daughter to venture out unless she is part of some large group. This must change,” she said.
IT professional Neelam Nain, who cast her vote at Salwan Public School in Sector 15 Part-2, said she had voted for “change”, and was all praise for the arrangements at the booth saying that “it was all very smooth”. “It took me just two minutes inside the booth. There were no queues. It was very clean as well,” Ms. Nain said.
Despite the efforts of the Gurugram administration to address urban voter apathy by taking different initiatives, including setting up of polling booths inside the high-rises and deploying NSS volunteers to help the senior citizens and PwD electors, Gurgaon and Badshahpur, the predominantly urban constituencies in Haryana, recorded one of the lowest turnouts in the State at 47 and 47.7% respectively as per the latest figures on ECI’s Turnout App.
Published – October 05, 2024 10:00 pm IST
