Five-year-old decides the fate of ward in Mumbai central

Mumbai: Five-year-old Yashika Salunkhe on Thursday decided the fate of two candidates of ward number 220, in the civic elections 2017. In an interesting turn of events,

Atul Shah of BJP was declared the winner after Yashika drew his name when a lottery was held to decide who won the ward. The lottery was held because Mr Shah’s opponent, Surendra Bagalkar also polled the same number of votes as Mr Shah did — 5,946. The ward comprises Chira Bazar, Null Bazar, JJ Hospital and Mumbai central.

Initially, Mr Shah was declared the winner but after the Sena candidate raised an objected and applied for a recounting of votes, it came to light that both candidates had got the equal number of votes. Following this, civic chief Ajoy Mehta headed to the counting centre where the winner was decided through a lottery drawn by Yashika.  Two chits with the names of both candidates were put in tin and the little one pulled the chit of BJPs Mr Shah, who was declared the winner.

Talking to The Asian Age, civic chief Ajoy Mehta said, “When a situation occurs wherein candidates poll the same number of votes, there is a notification dated May 10, 1996, which mentioned that the power of election commissioner is transferred to BMC commissioner to conduct the lottery, which we did and the BJP candidate declared was declared the winner.”

Sena’s MP Anil Desai said they would move the court. “Tender votes are those votes where a person comes with his original identity, which is verified by the election officer and allowed to cast vote, but (another) person (later) appears with the same identity, with original documents.”Mr Desai said that person is also allowed to vote. He said three such votes are there, over which they would approach the court.