Political parties flock to Mumbai shelter as homeless residents become voters

In the Mumbai area, over 100 homeless individuals who were living at a shelter in New Panvel have obtained voter ID cards. This marks the first group of beneficiaries at the shelter, which has been operated by the Social and Evangelical Association for Love (SEAL) for 25 years. Social workers from SEAL facilitated this initiative, benefiting a total of 125 homeless individuals at the shelter. They are now eager to participate in the upcoming Phase-4 elections in the Maval constituency on May 13 by casting their votes.

This addition of 125 new voters has caught the attention of political party workers. They have started visiting the SEAL Ashram to campaign for their candidates and inquire about any issues the shelter residents may have that they can address.

Pastor Biju Samuel, who is second-in-command at SEAL, told TOI, "We are happy that our shelter home is now finally showing on the political radars of parties, since we now have 125 newly registered voters. For the past quarter century, local politicians were hardly interested in homeless people. Now they do."


The rescued homeless individuals at SEAL have an intriguing backstory regarding how they became eligible voters.

"During the Covid lockdown period, in the year 2021, we were desperately trying to get vaccinations done for all our inmates. But none of them had any legit ID cards at that time. That is when the then Raigad district collector, Nidhi Choudhari, personally took interest in our problem and issued Aadhaar cards for all of them," said Samuel.

Ghanshyam Chavan, a 68-year-old resident at the shelter, gladly displayed his new ID card to the correspondent, and said: "I used to earlier stay at Lalbaug in central Mumbai, but later I lost my family and also my money. Due to my advancing age, a kind lady brought me to SEAL Ashram. I will surely vote now on polling day."

Inputs from TOI