Thursday, April 23, 2009

My First Vote ... Finally !

 

I voted finally ! The excitement was uncontrollable as I came out of the polling booth. I had a wide grin on my face and could not control the excitement. This was after I had almost given up on getting my name into the voters list for the Loksabha 2009 elections.

It was beginning of March 2009 when an advertisement in the newspaper announced that it was still possible to get your name into the electoral roll. After giving it a pass initially, I decided to take it seriously and atleast make an attempt to get my name into the electoral list. The process was simple and hassle free. After getting the necessary documents, I decided to give it a try. My wife also joined me after the initial hesitation. She decided to join me after realizing that I was serious about it and the fact that I might end up voting and she might not !!

April first week and a couple of trips to the voter facilitation centre only led to disappointment as we could not locate our name in the voter's list. The last date had passed by and I thought to myself, "this was another election that I had missed." In an interview to NDTV the other day, Shashi Tharoor had mentioned that he had also cast the vote for the first time and that too for himself. May be I would also do a similar thing !

With just one day to go for elections in Bengaluru the election commission updated the online electoral roll and now we had the chance to search for our names ourselves and voila ... our names were present !! It was my first real chance to take part in the democratic process and did not want to miss it.

April 23rd 2009 11:12 AM; as I pressed the blue button in the EVM to register my vote, I had got one monkey off my back - of not being able to vote! I had cast my vote and I was proud of it !

Indian Ink on Satba's finger DSC00123

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