At polling booths in housing societies in Pune district, it’s a work in progress | Pune News

Booth level officers Suvarna Gogawale, Ratnamala Pimpare, and Sangeeta Misal said they hoped this exercise would help drive up the voting percentage. Jalindar Singhare, another poll officer, said this would help the electorate. “We feel the polling percentage would be over 60 as most people would come to vote,” said Gogawale.

At Kendriya Vihar Cooperative Housing Society in Moshi, chairman Suresh Bhosale said they were approached by poll officials to install polling booths within the premises. “After a discussion with the members, we agreed. We have three polling booths in our community hall,” he said.

The society has around 1,000 residents as voters and the booths have around 4,000 people enrolled to vote. Bhosale said around 50 per cent of the residents were listed at the society booth for voting while the rest were sent to the old polling booth in Borhadewadi, around 5 km away. “It is a relief that our senior citizens can vote within their society, but we should have all the voters here,” he said.

Voting underway at KV (Express Photo by Partha Sarathi Biswas)

The Netaji Nagar Cooperative Housing Society at Lullanagar is among the 126 polling booths in the Pune district. The 49-year-old housing society has 582 flats across 39 buildings, with a voting population of 1900.

Its chairman Ravindra Mhaskar said voting had been a smooth process so far. “Our efforts have been to reach out to residents who have flats in the society but now stay elsewhere. At least 50 per cent of the residents have moved out due to small flats here. We have reached out to several,” added Mhaskar.

Shankar Karasgikar, 82, a retired professor at the College of Engineering Pune Technological University, said voting within the society premises was a different experience.

However, all is not well in other societies in Pune. At Voyage Cooperative Housing Society in Moshi, only 20 per cent of its residents have their names registered at the booth there.

Nitik Singh, the property manager of the housing society, said they started the process of enrolling voters in the last two months. “All those forms are still in our office. There are mostly outsiders who have come to vote here,” he said.

At Raheja Garden Federation Cooperative Housing Society, Wanowrie, polling booth level officer Asha Bhosale guided residents of nearby societies as they waited to figure out the booth where they could cast their votes.