Thou Shall Not Vote – Indian Elections
May 6, 2009 by Uttoran Sen
Filed under Indian Topics
Some time back I got my voting card, was too happy to see it, as it is my first. Then came the sad part, my picture was on my father’s card and my voter ID card has my father’s picture on it. I did not accept the card and returned it with a little note along with it. The revised card never came.
The voting card is not mandatory; I knew that I would be allowed to vote even if I don’t have the voter’s identification card. All I need to carry was a photo identification certificate, like my driving license.
The voting day: I usually wake up at 10 AM because I work all night, till 5 AM in the morning. I went to sleep a bit early that day, so woke up at 6, got ready and at 7+ AM I went to the polling booth. Everything was messed up as usual. With some hard work, I figured out which booth will have my name. Then came the hard part, long list of papers were scattered around and everyone was desperately finding their names on it. Some of them did find it, but some unlucky ones like me searched for 4+ hours in the hot sun, but could not find. Finally I was too tired and asked some of the authorities out there for help, hoping they will give some clues to find my name. They said that some people have run out with a few papers, may be my name was on those papers.
I still continued my search, but it was a failure attempt, could not find my name. Finally gave up and went home disappointed. Some people still call India a democratic country!
Anyways, here’s a suggestions: Give Internet access to voters: why not? If Advani can run campaigns on Internet, then why not provide a name search. Remove the papers and get a person with laptop on the polling booths. That should solve a lot of problems.
this was indeed a bad experience, but it is not the universal one.we have faced a lot of hardship to become a democratic country.rather than giving up we should unite and fight against these evils. voting is our moral duty and right . we just can not give it up.
hi crazy currents,
yep, right you are. I hope the authorities make it easier for the voters, so that more people votes,