By Pardeep Singh
Gurgaon, Aug 17 (IANS): Till now they were indifferent but now they want to stand up and be counted.
People from Gurgaon's corporate and cyber world, who were so far lost to Haryana's politics, now want to give competition to local residents, especially from villages, when it comes to being part of the area's democracy. More and more of these corporate and IT professionals have got themselves enrolled as voters in the Badshahpur assembly constituency in Haryana's Gurgaon district.
The result of this newfound love for politics is that Badshahpur has ended up as the assembly constituency with the highest number of voters in entire Haryana.
The assembly seat is now a picture of voters from the upscale high-rise towers and villas rubbing shoulders with the lesser mortals from Badshahpur villages and its surrounding areas. A large number of people from the corporate and IT world have, for the first time, registered themselves as voters along with local residents.
"Badshahpur is the only seat in the state in which the number of voters have crossed the 300,000 mark and the numbers are still increasing. The figure is more than double in comparison to many other constituencies," an official of the election department told IANS.
Badshahpur, which earlier used to be only a village till the land became a goldmine for builders and new settlers, is part of ever-growing Gurgaon, the satellite town of national capital Delhi and known as Haryana's Millennium City.
The Gurgaon assembly seat has the second highest number of voters
(290,000) in the state after Badshahpur (313,000).
"The voters of Badshahpur are of mixed culture and nature, categorized between rural, sub-urban, MNC professionals and people living in high-rise lifestyle," said Avantika, one of the IT professionals living in the area.
"People living in new Gurgaon were reluctant to register themselves as voters but they started showing interest after the Anna Hazare movement in Delhi. The concerned officials also did their job well, resulting in a large number of voters," senior administrative officer R.S.Sangwan told IANS.
"The record number of voters is also the outcome of the Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) plan implemented by the Election Commission. Parents of school kids and students of senior secondary schools and colleges were motivated by their teachers to get voters in their homes registered. The results are encouraging," Sangwan said.
"Our active participation in voting and electing our representatives can only change the system. Unhappy with UPA-2 government regime, people actively registered themselves as voters and voted in large numbers during the last Lok Sabha elections," said R.S. Yadav, member of Joint Action Forum of Residents' Welfare Associations (JAFRA).
Assembly polls in Haryana are due by October and the new voters are excited about it.
"I have been living in Gurgaon for over last four years, but I and some of my friends registered ourselves voters only last year. Earlier, we used to think why vote as many of us were technically outsiders here (coming from other states/places) but now we say, we must vote," said Vaibhav, a MNC executive.
Only eight out of 90 assembly seats in Haryana have more than 200,000 voters. These are Badshahpur, Gurgaon, Faridabad NIT, Badkhal, Tigaon, Kosli, Fatehabad and Ambala City.