Hyderabad, November 23: As the city gears up to face the GHMC polls on Monday, liquor and money flowed in abundance on Sunday night. The last few hours before the polls were quite hectic for the candidates and their close followers as they had to set things “right” with the voters and group leaders who play a key role in garnering “bulk votes”.
The target for most contesting candidates are the slums as the general feeling is that those in colonies will not vote in “bulk” but according to their ideology or party affiliations and seldom can be influenced with money and liquor.
Easy target
However, slum voters are an easy target, given the local leaders’ grip over them. After all, it is these leaders who get things done for them in their day-to-day activities.
“It’s a big job given the pulls and pressures exerted by small-time leaders who come up with all kinds of demands and promises. They assure votes based on locality, caste, religion and even employee associations. We can neither ignore nor trust them totally. We have to be extremely careful given the division wise polling for local body elections,” admitted a close ally of a contestant, “managing cash distribution”.
Inducements galore
Candidates end up spending between Rs. 5 and Rs. 8 lakh on the poll-eve alone of which anywhere from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 50,000 is spent for a group of 1,000 to 2,000 voters. Cash is distributed in advance lest it comes to the notice of the police, Opposition or even the media. Other inducements include sarees for women. Liquor too is distributed generously and is stored in different places to escape police raids.
The operation is simple. Group leaders of these localities are first identified and the bargaining begins. The amount given to them depends on his influence and he or she garners 10 per cent share, at least. The spending continues on polling day too on vehicles to transport voters and later in the night for all followers to ‘unwind’.
-Agencies