My First Vote - April 2009

The last week of April was indeed a very great one. The Lok Sabha Elections were round the corner and everyone was excited. Well, obviously not for voting reasons, but for the Extended Weekend in store. I heard many of my friends telling me about the 4 holidays back-to-back. The Election day was on 30th April (Thursday), 1st May (Friday) was a holiday on a/c of Maharashtra Day and then the usual weekend (Saturday/Sunday). I had several invites for those 4 days but I wanted to do something which I never did before.

Ive heard many people around me telling youngsters that they should cast their vote as it is their fundamental right. But strange as it may sound, some people were surprised to find their names missing from the voter's list whereas people who stay illegally on government land with free electricity, free cable TV and all other stolen luxuries had their names in the list. Anyways, I wasn't the unlucky one. My name was up there and I decided to cast my vote. The polling station was an old municipal school with good signboards. Surprisingly, the staff was very friendly and helped the citizens. I was happy as I never expected this but I was also sad that the turnout was very poor. Despite several campaigns by the print media, NGO's etc, people didn't turn out in huge numbers. I thought maybe the poor turnout was only in the polling station I'd been to. But when i saw the statistics on TV, I was amazed, the voters turnout was indeed very poor. It made me wonder "Do the people of Mumbai really care??"

Well it was a morning with mixed feelings. There was happiness as well as grief.