An abysmal 38.09 percent poll was recorded on Thursday during the by-election for prabhag number 12(D). Of the total 58,162 voters, their franchise was exercised by just 21,151. The counting will take place on Friday at the Dharampeth area office of NMC, Gokulpeth, from 10 am. Five contestants were in the fray — Ashok Dorlikar, Praful Ganvir from Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh, Vikram Gwalbanshi from BJP, Akash Kawle from AAP, and Pankaj Shukla from Congress. After the death of four-time corporator Jagdish Gwalbanshi, a Sai Nagar resident, the by-election was required. The election passed peacefully and there was no incident that was untoward. A mere 6 per cent polling was registered during the first two hours. Also in the later part of the day there was a similar trend with the percentage not climbing every two hours to more than 5 percent. There are 30,235 male and 27,927 female voters in the ward. But there were only 11,948 male voters and 10,203 female voters. Officials blamed the poor show for bypolls on official working day apart from low enthusiasm among the masses. In the prabhag, the civic body had built 50 polling booths. BJP had chosen Vikram Gwalbanshi, the deceased corporator’s son, while Congress had chosen Pankaj Shukla, whose parents had also previously represented the district, Surendra and Nilima. The bypoll is not contested by the NCP and Shiv Sena. The dismal turnout of voters was because several voters in the city do not take bypoll as such seriously. “There should have been far better mobilization of workers and voters from our side too,” said the office-bearer of the BJP. Nevertheless, Congress staff pointed out that the turnout might have been higher if there had been a holiday like other surveys.
