Cleaner election? Citizens purge city streets of poll dross

Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, March 10: Now that the election frenzy has ebbed and euphoria over a new government is on, members of the public of Dimapur district were left with the clutter and gutter of political parties’ campaign posters, bunting and bills pasted across the town’s public areas.
As is customary after elections are announced political workers go around slapping fairly large amount of glue pastes on any private and public wall, pillar and shutter, to declare their slogans. Such ‘tireless’ efforts of political workers go on till late nights.
Visually inescapable and omnipresent—not to mention an eyesore—such posters are a major aspect of elections. But the story is all about post-elections: The faces of those who prevailed and those that lost stare blankly from betel-nut-spit and lime-stained walls.
Vocal opposition to the practice of defacing public areas with political campaign materials are emerging. A few spoke to Eastern Mirror about the election litter. In some countries, election litter is a term used to describe the unlawful set up of political advertising on private residences or property owned by the local government and it is usually banned by local governments.
A government employee while keeping this in mind said that the same people who were entrusted to put up these posters for their candidate should also take them down. “The ones who put up the posters know exactly where they stuck them so it will be easier for them to know where and take them down.”
The Dimapur Municipal Council (DMC) took the initiative to clean parts of Dimapur town on March 10. The DMC’s officials along with a handful of volunteers took to the streets to remove the election campaign posters left by various political parties. It was noticed that some candidates’ posters were even made of a different quality of paper which made it difficult for the volunteers to scrape off.
Another citizen of Dimapur who volunteered for the “Clean Dimapur” initiative said that the DMC was doing a good job. However, the source questioned how much “mess” could the council clean up with minimum manpower. “The candidate whose posters are put up must have have somebody in charge. Why not have that person take charge to assign the same people to take them down,” the citizen maintained.
Another volunteer also said that the ‘visual assault’ on the public should be kept to the minimum. “We must keep the quality of living in an urban environment up to a standard and be preserved.”
While layer after layer of posters are stuck on walls and pillars each fighting for space against each other, the efforts required to get them off becomes difficult as in the case was seen in Dimapur during the cleanliness drive.
Despite options provided by technology, public advertisements by candidates have yet to embrace accountability and environmental concerns not just in Nagaland but across the country. If that is the case, and if it goes unchecked, the responsibility of removing election leftovers should also fall on those responsible for putting them up in the first place. After all, everyone is a citizen of the town including the members of the legislative assembly; ministers, government officials, future aspirants to the government, and just about anybody for that fact.