Road show drives people to vote right

For the past few days, the Angmehanti Kashtkari Sangharsh Samiti has been holding roadside meetings in areas like Swargate, Gultekdi, Railway Station, University Circle and so on. They simply spread a rug, put up their banner, adding to it a poster exhibition on issues like girls’ education and inflation and a hugeboard detailing the rise in prices of essential commodities over the past few years. Passers-by are then invited to air their grievances or voice their expectations from the elected Lok Sabha candidate from the city. “We formed this Samiti recently in view of the forthcoming elections and since February 12 have been holding impromptu meetings at various places in Pune, ‘ explained Baba Adhav, who is president of the Samiti.

“Our main objective is to educate the populace in general and uneducated workers in particular about the various issues that need to be taken into consideration before they part with their valuable votes to elect a candidate. For example, when you go to buy vegetables you survey the goods, scrutinize their quality and pick only the good ones. For the elections, we want people to adopt a similar mind-set and elect a candidate only after they have questioned him, ascertained his credentials and are convinced of his sincerity,”said Adhav.

He said the meetings had led him and his fellowmembers to conclude that there are three main issues that concern the common man today — inflation, unemployment and water scarcity. “We want the voters to extract concrete promises from the candidates,” he added.

“In fact, we have decided to broaden the scope of the Samiti by continuing its activities even after the elections to ensure that the elected candidate keeps his promises,” he said.