India’s Financial Capital Suffers Political Apathy: India Votes

Each day, Bloomberg journalists take you across a selection of towns and cities as they gear up for the big vote.

Hello, this is Anirban Nag, and I head Bloomberg’s Mumbai Bureau. India’s financial capital where some of the country’s richest, including Mukesh Ambani, are registered voters is infamous for low turnout numbers. Crumbling infrastructure, inadequate public transport and insufferable civic services that result in deadly disasters have long ailed the country’s richest municipal body, which is home to some of the nation’s biggest companies. Oft repeated political promises of transforming it into a world class metropolis have never been kept. This week, 16 people died and scores of others were injured as a massive billboard collapsed in a freak storm that shut Mumbai airport for more than an hour. Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and its alliance partner have won all six parliament seats in the city in last two elections. A split in its former partner and right-wing Hindutva party Shiv Sena, has made the contest interesting this time as one faction has sided with the opposition alliance. BJP’s Piyush Goyal, federal trade and food minister, is a first-time contestant from one of the constituencies. So is, Ujjawal Nikam, a former public prosecutor known for fighting cases related to terrorist attacks in the city.