Hina Shroff chosen consensus candidate for Ward No. 65 in Vile Parle (W)

Activist Hina Shroff was on Sunday chosen as the citizens’ consensus candidate for Ward No. 65 in Vile Parle for the civic elections to be held in February 2012.

Ward No. 65, currently held by Jayanti Shiroya of the Congress, has now been reserved for a woman candidate.

In keeping with the Model Nagar Raj Bill which recommends the formation of polling booth/ locality level elected representatives (called area sabha representatives or ASRs), Shroff was picked by 30 ASRs.

Shroff, who was chosen over Maya Mehta, Nikita Shah and Vaishali Mehta, is the secretary of My Residents’ Association in Vile Parle and associated with Mumbai Nagrik Manch (MNM). “I’m aware of the functioning of the municipal body and keep abreast of civic issues,” said Shroff.

A panel comprising Dr Sindhu Daftary, owner of a nursing home in Juhu, activist Vimal Thakur, Father Alex Carvalho, parish priest, St Xavier’s Church (Vile Parle) chose Shroff.

The nomination of the citizens’ consensus candidate was organized by Mumbai Nagrik Manch (MNM) of which Hansel D’Souza is the convenor. D’Souza and other Juhu residents were responsible for giving Mumbai its first citizen-backed corporator, Adolf D’Souza, in 2007.

Asked why MNM didn’t involve Mumbai 227, a newly-formed group to select citizens’ candidates, D’Souza said, “Mumbai 227 believes that if you have a good candidate, you will have good governance. We do not share that belief. The Prime Minister of India has the finest credentials, but we cannot say the same about governance in the country. Closer home, we had a non-corrupt corporator in Adolf but that did not result in efficient local governance in Juhu.”

“We need solid efficient teams on the ground to take responsibility of an area at the local level. The ASR team has pledged to work with the corporator for five years, irrespective of whether the citizens’ candidate wins or loses,” said D’Souza.

D’Souza is planning to set up ASRs in different parts of the city, starting with Mahim next week.”Their role will be to ensure service delivery in their area by acting as an interface between the citizens and the BMC administration,” said D’Souza.

 

Source: The Times of India