Pune: For all intents and purposes, Avinash Ramnath lives in Pune, commutes daily to the city, and resides in one of the burgeoning suburbs. But like many others, he feels alienated from his Lok Sabha constituency and candidate for the forthcoming general electionsRamnath, a resident of Wagholi, part of the Shirur Lok Sabha constituency and the eponymous state assembly constituency. The suburb has been mooted as the next area to be absorbed under Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), with large housing societies — and the associated civic needs — overwhelming the area, now an almost self-contained town.“There is a huge disconnect. We live in Pune, the city serves our economic needs, and we commute there very often. But we are not part of the Pune city constituency, where we should be, so that development could be better coordinated. The Shirur representatives do not seem to care about Wagholi which has such a huge population. There are big issues related to water supply and garbage collection, and we are the ones who have to communicate with the gram panchayat for all our civic issues,” he told TOI.The last round of delimitation had included areas and constituencies that are far from any geographical proximity, including anomalies like parts of Undri and Mohammadwadi being part of the Shirur constituency. And residents there, who are part of the PMC area, say that they have little motivation to cast votes come April.“We are under the PMC area, we pay taxes here. But we are not getting any drinking water. Our society has more than 400 apartments, and thus we have to spend huge amounts of money on water tankers. It would definitely be better if we were part of the city constituency, so that there would be better coordination with the civic body. The PMC is not even picking up garbage regularly, and we even filed a case against the civic body. We don’t even feel like going to vote this time around,” said Bhavika Shroff, a businesswoman, who also has her office in the area.Another burgeoning suburb, Dhayari, now under the civic jurisdiction of the PMC, also has a Lok Sabha constituency anomaly__ it is part of the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency. And for residents there, even basic issues need addressing, despite the huge housing societies and tech firm offices in the area.“This suburb is still developing. There is a huge IT industry here, lots of educational institutes have come up, and people are actually coming from all over the constituency to settle in Dhayari. Of course we would like Dhayari to be part of the city constituency, but our area has more basic needs. Many roads have not been built yet, and water supply is still a big issue,” said Rishikaysh Kaakandikar, a college professor and Dhayari resident.As for political equations go, experts feel that the fringe areas are where candidates will focus more of their energies, as increasingly, these areas are threatening to swing elections.“Some citizens may have a feeling that because their areas are not part of the Pune city constituency, development work may not be coordinated well with the PMC. But that has not been found to repress voter turnout in these areas as such,” said Vidyabhushan Arya, a city-based political strategist and professor.“People are politically active in the fringes, and sitting members and candidates are focusing more on these fringe areas, as the swing factor is dominant here. Baramati MP Supriya Sule got lesser votes in 2014 than in 2009 because of areas like Khadakwasla, which also has a large number of BJP corporators now after the civic polls,” she added.

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