Fest of democracy: Booths wear colourful look

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Kaithal/Kurushetra, October 21

It was voters’ day out today in Haryana with electors, especially women and first-time voters, dressed in a riot of colours thronging the polling stations in large numbers to celebrate the “festival of democracy”.

In true spirit of the Election Commission’s slogan terming the Assembly poll as “Haryana ka maha teohar” (mega festival), the voters, with enthusiasm writ large on their faces, made the most of the day with women and youngsters dressed in bright colours while elderly men preferred spotless white kurta pyjamas.

The polling stations wore a festive look with voters, despite different political affiliations, warmly greeting each other and cocking a snook at politicians’ narrative centred around divisive agenda during electioneering.

“Like festivals, voting is also a sacred tradition to keep the democracy alive and kicking. We should celebrate democracy as we get the chance to elect our representative only once in five years,” said a young Pooran Devi, clad in a bright orange suit at Keorak village in Kaithal district.

Expressing enthusiasm like other first-time voters, Rajan (18) at Shahbad exclaimed: “I could not believe that I would be electing my representative to the state Assembly when I first entered the polling station. It feels great to vote.”

While voters’ colourful attire made quite a statement, their silence on their candidate selection kept politicians and observers at their wits’ end about the possible results.

An extensive tour of Kaithal, Kurukshetra and Ambala districts by The Tribune team today showed that voters’ silence was giving sleepless nights to the contesting candidates. “Boojh loh (you can guess),” said Sheela (79) at Shahbad, when asked about her candidate choice.

“Despite opinion polls and surveys by vested interests in favour of one or another political party, a majority of the voters are keeping their cards close to their chest. Anyways, most of the contests along the GT Road belt are going to be close unlike the last Lok Sabha elections when the BJP virtually got a walkover,” said Bal Bhadra Sharma of Pipli.

A polling official, who has been associated with elections for the past over 20 years, told The Tribune at Shahpur (Ambala) that this year there appeared a lot of enthusiasm and awareness among women and first-time voters.

Keeping mum on candidate choice  

An extensive tour of Kaithal, Kurukshetra and Ambala districts by The Tribune team on Monday showed that voters' silence was giving sleepless nights to the contesting candidates. “Boojh loh (you can guess),” said Sheela (79) at Shahbad, when asked about her candidate choice.