Strong statements amid low turnout

Jaya Bachchan appeared happy to have bumped into Hema Malini; Amitabh couldn’t stop chatting with Esha on the way home.

Helped others but couldn’t vote
The Jamnabai Narsee polling station also had a good samaritarian in the form of Prasad Duvari. With a polite ‘Hello¿.can I help you’,Duvari would help each voter find his or her polling booth inside the school. Though a resident of Juhu,Duvari has been out of the country for 16 years and just returned from the US,so he could not vote. “That didn’t stop me from participating in the electoral process,” he said,carrying out his drive from 10 am till evening.

Found his name,thanks to a laptop
Dinesh Gandhi,a Ghatkopar resident and a first-time voter,was unsure whether his name was on the voters’ list but did not want to scan the lists pointlessly. “No candidate delivered us election slips,” he said. Respite came in the form of a laptop service offered by Mumbai Northeast BJP candidate Kirit Somaiya. In some parts of the constituency,he had deployed men with laptops to help people find their names. “We have a software installed that has a compilation of all registered voters in Northeast. So anyone will find out where his name figures on the voters’ list and also the booth number,” said Ritesh Gunjal,one of Somaiya’s volunteers.

Age no bar
Kamala Banavilker,102
Kamala Banavilker (102) of Khar couldn’t stop smiling as she proceeded to the booth,flanked by her children and great-grandchildren. She said she couldn’t remember the first time she voted,but she does know she has never missed an election. “Until two years ago,she was fit enough to walk to the polling booth on her own but then she had a fall and broke her hip,” said daughter Jyoti Hunawer (61),who rang up the Khar Residents Association to help take her mother to the booth. “There was no ramp at the polling station; we had to carry one along. We got a wheelchair with great difficulty as even a charitable hospital refused to part with one,” said Anandani Thakoor of the KRA,which arranged for vehicles for senior citizens and disabled voters.

Umarshibhai Khaiyashi Poladia,96
Umarshibhai Khaiyashi Poladia had been admitted to hospital for 12 days but on Thursday morning the frail man urged his son to take him out to vote. “He is politically alert and insists on being read the newspaper even in hospital. With doctors’ permission we brought him to the booth,” said son Prabodh. A freedom fighter,Umarshibhai,had to be lifted into his wheelchair.