Click to play videoMumbai: Mumbai's famous 'dabbawalas' are going beyond tiffin boxes and eyeing ballot boxes now. They are the latest to jump on to the political bandwagon. They met Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray for tickets for the upcoming BMC elections.
With many citizen-groups also fielding their own candidates and unions demanding seats, is this a threat to traditional party politics?
Citizen-groups argue that higher local participation in the electoral process is a good sign but ironically there is more than one citizen candidate in every ward. While citizen group Mumbai 227 is inviting candidates from all walks of life, Adolf D'souza's group that broke away from them will put up candidates chosen by housing societies.
Loksatta party will follow intra-party democracy to choose its candidates but some citizens feel too many options could risk the credibility of citizen movements.
While the jury is still out on the large number of election aspirants, perhaps the litmus test of the city's political awareness and participation will be the actual number of people who turn up at the polling booth.
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