Suburban temperament for ‘Juhu’ meeting

THE ASIAN AGE(APR 2004)

By Skimmy Gupta

Lot of eagerness and an air of anxiety reigns over residents of suburban Mumbai.The voter population of North West Mumbai Constituency will finally get a chance to barge their demands to their candidates. The "Meet Your Candidates" event organized on Saturday, 17th April at St. Joseph's School Ground, Juhu will witness sitting MP Sunil Dutt and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Nirupam answer people’s questions. The meeting is organized by citizen groups from the entire constituency extending from Bandra to Jogeshwari comprising of H-West Ward, H-East Ward, K-West Ward and K-East Ward. Also representatives of NGOs, Alms, housing cooperatives and mandals are expected to attend this event.

Associations from Bandra to Jogeshwari including Bandra Residents Association, Khar Residents Association, JVPD Tenants and Residents Association have already started conducting inter meetings to shortlist their list of demands and problems at the forthcoming meeting. Major issues likely to be raised include civic problems, property tax, paper leak, TDR destruction, lack of gardens /open spaces, details of MP funds.

Utsal Karani, secretary, Federation of Tenants Associations of Suburban Mumbai informs “We will be conducting various meetings with residents of Juhu this week to shortlist the main problems concerning our constituency. The candidates will have to answer strong questions trustfully to satisfy people at large and give details of every penny spend from the MP fund .The major issue concerning the most suburban people is TDR issues. It has further given rise to inadequate civic facilities in form of water supply, drainage system. Other issue we will oppose is newly implemented property tax. The property tax in Juhu area of Rs.2 per sq.ft is pretty high.”

Shyama Kulkarni, Chairperson of H- west Citizen’s Trust at Bandra says “Politicians have been making fool of us since a long time and we have not realized it. We are frustrated with the system as choice of candidate is limited. We need to equip ourselves with information about the candidate and their visions about future of Mumbai.Since MP funds are tax payers money, it is important to monitor that this money is not frittered away to create votebanks. It must be used to benefit all sections of the society.”

Gordon D’Souza, AGNI-Coordinator for the event states “The event will consist of the presentation of AGNI Citizens Charter .The candidates will be given an opportunity to speak for 10 minutes on their plans for the constituency and their response to the Citizens Charter. The purpose of the meeting is to help people know their candidates so that they can make an informed choice at the elections. We would like hear how candidates plan to address the problems and needs of this constituency and what they have achieved in public life.”

Ramaben Shah,a housewife at Juhu is excited to face the candidates at the meeting. She says “Finally, they will show us their faces after five years .It seems so filmy. Anyway we do not have a choice. We will certainly put forward our issues strongly this time. ”


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