Some came on wheelchairs, some came holding sticks and some wobbled along, leaning heavily on a younger person. The senior citizens of the Capital were out in full force, with thick sweaters and shawls wrapped around them tightly, to exercise their franchise on Saturday.
“I walked all the way from Pakistan during Partition, I am that old. I have been voting for more than 40 years now. I am so old that my highest expectations from a new government is that they will work at least 30 per cent of the time,” said J.K Anand in his 90s.
He, along with his wife, had finished voting around 10 a.m. at a polling station in Sultanpur, an area which has a mix of slum clusters and middle-class homes.
Sitting on a bench just inside the gates of the Bawala polling station were Kasturi Devi and her three friends. She claimed to be the youngest among them and said she was in her early 80s but none of them was willing to “reveal” who may be the oldest.
“I am 91 but none of my friends believe me. They think I am older. I have voted in at least 30 elections. I did not want to miss this one, especially since I watch TV and know who I would want to vote for. So, I asked my grandson to bring all of us,” said Bindya, who then had her grandson support all of them into a waiting car.
There were many senior citizens who had severe trouble walking into the booths and casting their votes, some of them had shivering hands and many were taken in on wheelchairs. One of them was 80-year-old Kasturi Devi Agarwal who also asked her granddaughter to come along. “She was too lazy to come but I made her,” she said at the Narela polling booth.
Stubbornly refusing any help to walk was 81-year-old Mahavir Singh who said he would not miss an election unless he was too weak to get out of bed. Krishna Shri Gupta, 88-year-old, said he would keep coming until there was someone who was willing to bring him. And 75-year-old Sham Lal said young, healthy people who did not vote should be ashamed of themselves.
