Though only over a fortnight is left before polling day arrives, residents at homes for the elderly here not sure if they will be able to exercise their franchise.
A. Janaki, 76, who lives in a home run by Women’s Voluntary Services for destitute women, recalls she last voted way back in 1996, when she was working in Coimbatore. “How could I have voted when I was in the move from one place to another in search of a livelihood until landing up at this place? Now I am too weak to go to a polling station on my own and come back alive,” she says, pointing to her frail body.
S. Thangamari, 70, who lives in the same shelter, has the same problem. She says she has a valid voter identity card, but her home town — Watrap in Virudhunagar district — but cannot travel that long.
Transportation, it becomes clear, is the sole stumbling block preventing the aged from casting their votes. S. Shanthi, another resident of the care centre, says it has become a problem ever since the Election Commission prohibited political parties and candidates from providing free transport to voters and declared it a corrupt practice.
Like Janaki, it has been ages since A. Subbuthai, a former farmhand from Natham in Dindigul district, went to the polling booth.
Her last vote went to former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran, who passed away in 1987. “After that I lost interest in elections and stopped casting my vote,” she says.
The residents of a care centre for the elderly run by leading NGO HelpAge India at Vishwanathapuram here have a different kind of grouse.
They say they were photographed by polling officials about 10 days ago, but till date they have received neither the ID cards nor booth slips.
“All 17 of us were photographed and asked to sign applications. We can vote only after we get to hear from the officials. Even if all of us are allowed to vote, I don’t think those who are 80 will be able to go to the polling station and stand in long queues,” one elderly person says.
