Why Gurgaon won't vote?

Are the Millennium City residents feeling left out of the poll process? Yes, say many residents who haven’t seen the face of a single candidate in their area. “Gurgaon is called the Millennium City, but surprisingly, the candidates haven’t even bothered to call upon us. We get the election update of our area through media. We are feeling left out,” says Subhash Chandra Sharma, a retired banker and resident of Sector 56.
With New Gurgaon voters forming only 10 per cent of the total electorate in Gurgaon Assembly constituency (which along with eight other Assembly segments forms the Gurgaon parliamentary constituency), all the candidates are focusing their campaign on rural areas.
Armed with the urban issues and problems, a few believed that candidates would come to woo the elite class of Gurgaon. However they are stunned by the royal ignore they have received from the candidates. “If you travel to Old Gurgaon, at least you can see banners and hoardings and you realise the campaign is on. In New Gurgaon the entire election paraphernalia is missing. Perhaps we are too few for these candidates to matter,” says Sunil Kalra, a DLF phase II resident.
Besides, there are people who have received their voter ID cards, but still they are unaware about their polling booths. “During morning walks, I meet so many people who don’t even know their polling booths, but they have a voter ID card. At least in other towns, parties make it a point to inform their voters about these things. Here political parties aren’t even courteous enough to make a basic point of contact by giving this information to their voters,” says Pooja Khan, a resident of DLF Phase V.
“New Gurgaon doesn’t form a vote-bank for politicians, so they ignore us. However, they tend to forget that the large chunk of revenue that the state earns comes from this area. And it is this achievement that they boast of on all political platforms. However, it’s unfortunate that they feel the residents of the same town are insignificant for them. Sad part is that the aim of a candidate is to win polls, so they focus on rural vote banks. And this is the main reason why urban middle class has become cynic for the electoral process,” says Shashi Sharma of People’s Action Group.
However, RWAs are miffed by the fact that voter’s list is not complete. “There are more than 1000 people living in Hamilton Court, but only 127 names are there in the voter list. Lots of names are missing from the previous list. This is the reason why New Gurgaon residents form such a small minority group to attract the attention of candidates contesting elections,” says Om Prakash Khetan, President, Hamilton Court RWA.
Khetan’s son and daughter-in-laws names are missing from this year’s voter list. “There are lot of people in our apartments who have ID cards and have cast their vote in 2004 elections, but their names are missing from here now,” Khetan adds.
V.N. Kapoor, President of Regency Park II RWA also complains, “Political parties are more interested in addressing slum issues than our problems. They know they will get chunk of votes from there and hence hardly waste time in contacting us. We are useless for them.”
Residents of Regency Park II also face the same problem as that of Hamilton Court. “The names of only 40 per cent of the eligible voters in our apartments are there in the list. Rest of the names is missing. Four years back me and my wife applied for ID card, but till now only I have received my card whereas my wife’s card is missing. In other parts of the country party workers of different political parties help the voters in getting them registered. In Gurgaon, none of the political party workers even bothered to help us out,” says Kapoor. “They don’t know that a small initiative taken by them would have helped them secure a chunk of votes of new Gurgaon,” says Khetan.