MAPUSAA can
didate contesting from Ward 10 at the Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) election has objected to a polling station that is identified at a distance of almost 1 km, as it will inconvenience voters from her ward.
The candidate, Alpana Shirodkar, said residents from Chandranath Apartments, Garden Centre and nearby areas were in the past allowed to cast vote in the nearby polling station at the government school, but this time they have been asked to exercise their franchise at the far away New Goa school.
“Several residents, especially senior citizens, have complained to us about the difficulty of travelling to the distant polling station. I request election authorities take note and do necessary changes in the voting process,” Shirodkar said.
The candidate along with her husband Ashish Shirodkar, a former chairperson of MMC, was addressing a news conference in a city hotel on Wednesday.
Ashish Shirodkar, who doubles up as the candidate’s election agent, has written to the Assistant Returning Officer demanding a change of the polling station from New Goa High School to the government school.
“Many voters have requested me to take steps by requesting you to change the polling station back to booth 22 as done in the 2015 municipal election to avoid hardship,” Shirodkar said in a letter to the ARO.
The former chairperson said that at least 461 voters are being affected as they will have to take a long detour to cast their vote.
Alpana Shirodkar said she was contesting the election as an independent candidate but was open to the idea of supporting a BJP aligned council.
Former chairperson Ashish Shirodkar said people should not go by various panels floated at the election but vote for a candidate who has contributed to the society through social work.
He also said that the outgoing BJP-run council has failed to do anything worthwhile for the town.
“The chairpersons who were in the helm of the affairs of the Mapusa Municipal Council in the last terms have even failed to get government grants in the five-year term,” Shirodkar said.
