Mustn’t skip voting, CJI urges electorate

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 20

As India undertakes the world’s largest democratic exercise, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has urged citizens not to miss the opportunity to vote in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, saying it’s “one of the foremost duties” in a constitutional democracy.

“We are citizens of the world’s largest democracy, which is our country. The Constitution gives us a multitude of rights as citizens but it also expects that each of us performs the duty, which is cast upon us. And one of the foremost duties of citizenship is to cast a vote in a constitutional democracy,” the CJI said in a recorded video message for the Election Commission’s ‘My Vote My Voice’ mission for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Vote responsibly

I will request every one of you please do not miss this opportunity to vote responsibly as citizens of our great motherland. Five minutes, every five years for our nation. It’s doable, isn't it? Let’s vote with pride. My vote, my voice. DY Chandrachud, CJI

“I will request every one of you please do not miss this opportunity to vote responsibly as citizens of our great motherland. Five minutes… every five years for our nation. It’s doable, isn’t it? Let’s vote with pride. My vote, my voice,” the EC’s promotional video showed the CJI as saying.

Justice Chandrachud said he never missed the duty to cast his vote when he was a lawyer and had to run around for work. This is perhaps the first time that the CJI has appeared in a promotional video. The seven-phase Lok Sabha poll to elect 543 MPs for the 18th Lok Sabha commenced on April 19 and it will end June 1. The results will be declared on June 4.

Justice Chandrachud sought to emphasise that citizens have a participatory role in electing the government and that’s why it’s said that “the government is a government of the people, by the people and for the people”.

Recalling his own excitement as the first-time voter and queuing up at the polling booth to exercise the franchise, the CJI said, “The ink on the finger when I vote allows tremendous feelings of patriotism and association with the nation.... So our Constitution and our law provides for one citizen, one vote and one value. I think that’s the great tenacity and the power of our nation as a constitutional democracy.”

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