Mumbai-South was a complex enough place to begin with — home to some of India’s richest and most famous, whose bedrooms overlooked slums of Oscar-winning poverty. Delimitation threw in the crumbling, eight-people-a-room chawls along with machchhimaar colonies and the former mill lands. Then came the events of last November, which completely changed the political discourse of not just Mumbai-South, but of all India.

It’s been five months, and the anger hasn’t gone away. Will it translate into a new voting pattern in a city capable of forgetting tragedies quickly?

In her posh Marine Drive home, barely a kilometre from where her son and daughter-in-law died at the Oberoi, 75-year-old Sarla Parekh explains why the terrorist attacks must move electors famous for their political indifference.

Parekh, who backed a post-attack PIL in the Bombay High Court seeking better security and has set up with her friends a forum called ‘Citizens Take Charge’, has been telling Mumbai-South’s Rotarians, chartered accountants and businessmen why it is important to vote. “I tell people we’ve failed by not voting,” Parekh says. But she is convinced things will be different this time.

Former commissioner of Mumbai Police Julio Ribeiro — who is also on the board of ‘Citizens Take Charge’ — agrees, predicting that the class that has traditionally never voted “will come out in large numbers” to demand better protection from terrorism.

But the professional politicians don’t think so. And it is significant that none of the candidates has offered a new argument on security.

... contd.