NEW DELHI, November 25: Prices did not seem to bother the poor as much as they did the middle class voters. And where the Congress held sway, factors other than prices seemed to be at work.In the sprawling slums of Block 29, Trilokpuri constituency, if Sita did not cast her vote on Wednesday, the reason was that her child, Kuldeep, had been ill with cholera for the past one month and polls were not a solution. ``He has been taking medicines but he will not get well so long as we are living on this garbage pile,'' she says.Her neighbour, Y. N. Singh said that though the BJP counsellor Subhash Kohli and the MLA never did anything about the overflowing sewage drain and or the rising prices, he would vote BJP ``in the interests of the country''. Like Singh, many other slum votes seemed to be unaffected by the prices. Jaitoon and Vimla from the slums in Jamuna Pul Basti, Vishwas Nagar, said that though the prices were too much to bear, they would still vote BJP. Voters in Krishna Nagar dismissed prices as the outcome of natural phenomena and proclaimed loyalty for BJP.In Kailash Nagar in Gandhi Nagar constituency, while many voters admitted to voting for the Congress over the price issue, Sravan, a clerk in a private firm, said that the Congress could spread any rumours and even create a shortage of match boxes by stopping them at the border, but he would vote BJP.Shanti Mohalla in Gandhi Nagar was all for the BJP and voters dismissed all talk about prices saying the Congress had not done much better in the several decades it was in power. Jain voters in Vishwas Nagar were angry with the BJP but not because of the prices. ``Harsh Vardhan and the sitting MLA together let the Jain temple here be razed to the ground. The Jains here are not going to take this lying down,'' said Dr A. K. Jain. Voters from Rishab Vihar and Bahubali Enclave, both Jain colonies, echoed the sentiment.A couple in Vishwas Nagar came out vehemently against prices and said they hoped the Congress won. ``I am a government servant and after the GPF is deducted, I am left with little to afford the kind of prices now,'' he said.In Mayur Vihar Phase I, the mostly middle class electorate was greatly influenced by prices. Many voters admitted that they could not afford a BJP government while some voters were heard asking each other: ``Pyaz ko vote diya ki aloo ko''?And all through the massive section of middle class voters in Gole Market, it was the price rise issue that held sway.
