Voting Woes

 I expected May 13 to be a happy day as it was to be the eagerly awaited voting day. Yes, till today, I have never ever missed a single voting exercise, from Municipal to the Parliamentary elections. At times, I got off the train at 8.30, and was at the polling booth at 11-ish. Polling is one of the central duties/responsibilities, more than a mere right, of a citizen, is my firm belief.

The voting process has never been easy for me. I have not got the voter's card. I never get the booth slip. I have to always search for the polling booth which once was at a Gangadham School some five kilometers away from home.

Yet the experience today was the worst. In the Mukund Nagar ward of the Parvati legislative assembly section, only my name vanished from the voters' list. Women who died ten years ago, men who died some five years ago, all these names were intact. I saw all these dead people as existing voters with my own eyes! So it cannot be the argument that 'the Municipal Corporation revamped old data' as i was told at one booth. 

Aai's name was removed because we did inform the concerned authorities. But I am very much alive, however much certain crooks and vamps may want me dead! As for that favourite "old data'' stuff, women and men older than my Aai, why older than my Papa, voted!

Honestly one gets the feel that there was some huge hanky-panky.  I did everything strictly in accordance with all the rules and regulations. Well, there was one "Nitin Ramchandra Agnihotri" in the voters' list, but no, my name was noteworthy because of the vanishing trick! Now, neither Ramchandra nor Agnihotri is a very common moniker. The combination of both being one is still more an impossible stretch of imagination. But, yes, it was very much there. The only missing name was mine.

I was cooly told that nothing can be done. One of my colleagues asked me to register a complaint with the ECI which I sure did! One of the candidates had come to the booth. I informed him as well, but it was no use. You can very well guess why.

I was told that my voting woes were shared by very many, which is a very sad comment on the administration. This kind of conspiracy is much worse than that much touted 'voting machines getting hacked', et al kind of shenanigans.  Why, here the very identity of a law-abiding citizen is hacked! 

Well, I do think that, as they used to earlier, the candidates, too, must see to it that all the voters, who are alive, whether old, middle-aged or first time, get the voters' slip in each booth. At least that much they can do for the voters, and for their own good! Their booth representatives should do such yeoman service rather than foolish comments about "old data'' or selfies with "first time voters"! 

Sad, bad experience which ruined my day as I was searching any dim possibility of my name being there till 2 p.m., and thereafter felt rather low the rest of the day! Who cares though? A mere voter cannot be the king even on the voting day!

Pratima@ "A man who neglects his duty as a citizen has no rights as a citizen". Apparently there is some such quote on the insta, it seems. For once, the social media is actually saying something sensible!