pilgrimages weekend outings to nearby tourist spots cds of popular films tea sets dinner sets and home delivery of pan cards are also on offer s s roy chairman of konarkpuram society in kondhwa said i feel corporators should at least do some work for societies the national society for clean cities nscc president satish khot finds this worrisome in many wards candidates are competing about who can spend more on freebies we are not asking to do personal work a katraj society chairman said a sitting corporator in dhanori put up banners offering free insurance policies worth rs 2 lakh each to voters calling voters voters apathy especially among the upper middle class and high income groups is a cause for concern a congress aspirant from katraj recently developed a garden on a societys plot at his own expense a few days later trucks rolled in with cement paver blocks to lay some part of the pathway we face water supply and garbage cleaning problems a conscious middleclass has always frowned on the unethical practices candidates use to woo slum dwellers on polling day nearly 2176 lakh people will cast their votes for the civic election and 3200 polling booths will be required and 21000 staff would be involved in the process its members have asked their corporator to construct the protection wall for the society this is misuse of public money as the funds which corporators are spending for individual societies is meant for public works he said the election office of the pune municipal corporation has received over 25 applications from housing societies seeking polling booths on their premises for the february 16 civic election conversely when this group stays away from voting it can affect the quality of candidates representing the citizens in the civic body to counter the misfortune where in a democracy a majority of citizens are not exercising their basic rights to go and vote the state election commission has gone to the extent of allowing polling booths to be set up in housing societies and private institutions with more than 800 voters a resurgent middle class in pune can make or mar a politicians career the applications came from kothrud karvenagar punesatara road ahmednagar road and deccan gymkhana she has also dangled the carrot of free air trip to singapore to society members in locality across the city societies with rich members want corporators to do their internal roads lay internal water supply pipelines and provide mercury lights the trend is growing another from kothrud has organised free yoga classes for his middleclass voters and musical programmes in his ward while an aspirant from bibvewadi has started free consultancy with the help of an ngo to help women their members are basking in the knowledge that it is now or never since the civic polls are in february