Braving sweltering heat and lone queues, senior citizens turned up in large numbers to cast their votes at various polling booths of Jabalpur Parliamentary Constituency during Lok Sabha Elections on Friday. Ditching the facility of voting from home, many senior citizens stepped out and cast their votes from polling booths. For 95-year old Gulab Kali Bai, a voter from Jabalpur East Constituency, voting is a sacred ritual she has never missed in her life. “This is a legacy we are passing to our coming generations. Our country comes first and all other problems can be managed”, she smiled.

 

Even searing heat failed to dampened the spirit of 85-year-old Raghunath Singh who was partly paralysed and remained on wheelchair, still approached the polling centre to fulfill his duty towards the country. He said that the concept of home voting made him feel like he is incapable. Tikaram approached his polling centre on his wheelchair with urine bag intact, but the enthusiasm of using his franchise was clearly visible on his face. His son said that “He didn’t agree to choose home voting because he wanted to visit the booth and see people coming up for voting.

 

Despite suffering from a critical disease, he was keen on voting and insisted us to get him discharge from the hospital”. Barely able to walk, an elderly lady in her seventies said that she wanted to witness and feel the atmosphere inside the polling booth and hence she chose to vote from the booth. There were similar stories of senior citizens, many of them helped by their family members and scouts arriving at polling booths to cast their votes. Many were given wheelchairs at polling centres while others were provided chairs to wait for their turns.