Mumbai: On February 21, how many educated Mumbaikars will walk across to the nearest polling booth and exercise their right to change the status quo in the city? Going by the city’s track record, not very many: less than 45% voted in the past four elections. It is, after all, a holiday: take the previous day off, and you have a long weekend to travel out of the city.
Mumbai First, a not-for-profit group, has found a way to get the reticent middle-class citizen to go out there, and come back home with the indelible ink on her finger. As part of its Vote4Mumbai Challenge, it has roped in organisations in the city to push their employees to vote in a spirit of competition. The difference is, this time round, it is not an appeal; it’s a directive. “Appeals have never really worked,” says Shishir Joshi, CEO, Mumbai First. “We see this in, for instance, the way traffic rules are followed. The same Mumbaikar who misbehaves in Mumbai will do a fantastic job in Dubai. One out of every second Mumbaikar does not vote. Two out of every three middle class Mumbaikars don’t; the white collared for sure.”
The challenge involves the organisation taking stock of the number of registered voters, sending out an appeal, giving employees who are working that day, two hours in the morning or evening free, even rescheduling their meetings, and, on the following day, come back to the organisation and report how many had actually voted.
Mumbai First has broken up the challenge into units that can be incentivised. “The idea is to vote closest to 100%.” So the categories are 0-50 employees, 50-200 employees, 20-500 employees and 500-plus. A small advertising agency or pharmaceutical company comes in the 0-50 category, and so on. The top three winning teams in each category will be invited for a roundtable on Mumbai’s challenges and solutions, and the outcome of this will be put together by the same winning corporates in a white paper to be presented to the chief minister's war room, which monitors infrastructure projects. While corporates are playing as a team, there are also inter-departmental contests.
At another level, one person who goes out to vote scores six runs; if she takes someone else, she scores four extra runs, and if she takes five more people, she scores 20 runs. “Whoever is the master blaster of individual voting also gets incentivised,” he says. The winners’ list will be put up on the Mumbai First site and on social media. The organisations’ teams can also post videos and social messages to provoke others to vote, uploading them on the vote4mumbai Facebook page with a caption.
Apart from the Mahindra Group, ICICI Bank, JP Morgan India, MCX, Vodafone, Godrej, PayTM and Everstone are on board. “This is the first time that Corporate India is responding in such a solid way,” says Mr. Joshi, adding the State Election Commission is supporting the idea.
At a deeper level, Mr. Joshi sees it as a way citizens can be more involved in the running of their city. To begin with, the employee may say he shifted residence and will try and secure a voter’s ID. Next, he may find out who he is voting for. And finally, he will start getting involved in the discussion on his locality and city.
When the middle class comes out to vote, the voting percentage goes up. “In a BMC election, even 300 votes can change the dynamics.” This way, more people participate, get interested, start to speak out, and we have a more participative democracy, which Mumbai is known for, he says. “So far, with 227 people running for elections and deciding what happens to the Rs. 42,000 crore the BMC spends on the city, do I even know or care about what we read in the papers and love to criticise?”
The best part is, the mandate comes from the boss, and will therefore be treated as an assignment. “Suddenly, everything changes. An appeal from an inspiring boss can work as a directive. I am confident it will translate into votes.”
Vodafone CEO Sunil Sood, said his organisation will put up posters, and spread the message on its WhatsApp groups, to involve its nearly 2,000 employees in Mumbai. It will also give employees two hours off in the morning and in the evening to go out and vote. “As a company headquartered in Mumbai, it is our duty to do this. And ultimately, it is up to wach of us to ensure the city we live in is a better place, and that we vote the right people to make it so.”
Mrugank Paranjape, CEO of MCX, said his company has a people’s committee, which will check how many of its employees are eligible to vote in Mumbai and Thane. Emails will be sent out to help them utilise certain hours of the day for voting, and there will be internal contests such as ‘fastest finger first’ – employees will need to show the ink on their finger. “Essentially, a democracy is only as vibrant to extent its people participate. Just as in life and in a job you say you need to participate to make a difference, you do that in the decision-making process for the city.” Ultimately, he says, it’s a personal choice, but the organisation will “reinforce the message in multiple ways.”
For Mr. Joshi, though, the victory is much larger. “In five days, we’ve got a lakh employees who could go out and vote. If 15-20 lakh do so, it’s a game changer.”
To register, go to www.mumbaifirst.org/vote4mumbai/
