Mumbai: The Jain Sanghs in Mumbai will be organising Navkarshi, a post-sunrise breakfast, on the polling day to influence people of the community to cast their vote as a duty towards the country. Started from Jain Sanghs of Malabar Hill, the idea of Navkarshi on polling day is now being followed by Sanghs across Mumbai as the Jains aims at achieving 100% voting within the community.
Mumbai is set to go into polling on November 20 along with all the 288 constituencies in the state for the Vidhan Sabha elections. As the elections come close, various organisations and government bodies are pressing on voter awareness to increase the voter turnout in the elections. Meanwhile, the Jain community in Mumbai has stood up with an aim of achieving 100% voting within the community.
Jain Seva Sangh, a collective of Jain Sanghs brought together around 100 Jain Sanghs of South Mumbai including Suparshvanath Jain Sangh Walkeshwar Rd, Dariya Mahal Jain Sangh, Pleasant Plaza Jain Sangh Nepean Sea Rd, Chandan Bala Jain Sangh Malabar Hill, Kumud Mansion Jain Sangh Tardeo and designed a roadmap to achieve 100% community participation in voting.
After around eight meetings, the Jain sanghs came up with the idea of providing Navkarshi, a post-sunrise breakfast according to Jain scriptures, where people who cast their vote will be allowed to participate in the breakfast gathering. The Jain Seva Sangh has appointed one sangh coordinator for every 10 buildings who will communicate with the coordinators of each building and ensure that all the community members exercise their right to vote.
The collective of Jain sanghs have also prepared a list of 25,000 voters within the community living in South Mumbai and the coordinators will call every voter in the morning to wake them up and ask them to vote. Once the community members cast their vote, they will be invited to Navkarshi breakfast organised separately by each sanghs.
Nitin Vora, convenor of Shree Mumbai Jain Sangh Sangathan, said, “This time our aim is 100% voting within the community and after a lot of brainstorming we have come up with this initiative of providing Navkarshi to people who have excercised their right to vote. Navkarshi also has a religious angle and people participate in Navkarshi with lot of faith. Those with ink mark on their fingers will be provided breakfast by the sangh.”
While the initiative started from Malabar Hill and South Mumbai, this model is being implemented by Jain Sanghs across Mumbai. Shree Mumbai Jain Sangathan, which looks after more than 1,200 Jain Sanghs across Mumbai with a strength of around 20 Lakh members, has asked all the Jain sanghs to follow this model and organise Navkarshi for voters.
Pravin Lodaya, secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Achalgachh Jain Sangh, said, “We have heartily appealed to all the Jain community members who have made Maharashtra their ‘karmabhumi’ that all of us should participate in huge numbers and cast our valuable votes in the assembly elections. We should complete our duty towards our the nation and state.
“We have also ensured that people vote in the first half of the day so that they do not feel lazy to vote after having lunch. This can be called an aggressive campaign as this is a democratic right we get to exercise once in five years and we cannot be careless about it. All the leaders of various sub-communities are appealing the community members to participate in the election process without fail. We hav been very aggressive,” added Vora.
