For new Tata Sons chairman Chandra, voting comes first

Mumbai: It promised to be a very busy and eventful day for N Chandrasekaran. But casting his ballot took precedence over all his professional engagements, which included taking over as the chairman of the country's largest business house. Chandra, as he is popularly known, was spotted inked outside the Bombay House after first board meeting as the chairman of the USD103-billion salt to software conglomerate. The megapolis is at the polling booths today to elect a new civic body for the richest municipality in Asia.

Other corporate captains, were the early birds to cast their votes in the BMC polls, included HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, and Adi Godrej among others. Tina Ambani marked her presence at a polling booth in the tony Colaba area of the city, early in the day. Godrej group chairman Adi Godrej, and Hiranandani group chairman Niranjan Hiranandani also exercised their franchise at the civic polls. Among key bankers, State Bank of India's chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya was seen casting her vote, and so was HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh and his deputy Keki Mistry at a polling booth in south Mumbai.

The civic body, which has a precedence of staging poor turnouts in elections, appealed to the voters to come out in large numbers. BMC has 227 corporators in which 2,275 candidates are in the fray, while the election authorities have set up 7,304 polling booths at 1,582 places. Counting of the votes would take place on February 23. The voting percentage in the 2007 and 2012 polls were at 42 per cent and 45 per cent, respectively.