Six girls of a Latehar village on Monday volunteered to come to their government school, where a polling booth had been set up, to offer polling personnel and voters water and lunch that these students had cooked themselves.

Hutap village, where these teenage girls — Lakshmi Kumari, Usha Kumari and Babita Kumari of Class IX and Rashmi Kumari, Devyani Kumari and Sunita Kumari of Class X — stay, is in Chandwa block of Latehar district but falls under Chatra Lok Sabha seat, that along with Lohardaga and Palamau, voted on Monday.

Chandwa is infamous for two things — its rebel-hit tag and its failed industrial experiment as the much hyped power project of Abhijeet Group failed to take off.

These village girls proved it didn’t matter where they came from, it mattered what they did. Though it was a government holiday, these girls came to school at 6am, an hour before voting, with ration from home, and cooked a full-course community meal of rice, dal, subzi, bhujiya and papad on their campus itself.

Their logic? “Uncles who conduct polls need to eat, many voters who stand in queue feel hungry,” said Rashmi, who along with her friends made countless trips to the hand pump to fetch water.

Asked why they worked a holiday, Lakshmi said, “But it is not a holiday, it is vote day. Election is not only about voting, it is also about participation. We can’t vote but we can be a part of polls by serving food and water. Teachers tell us to be a good citizen, age is no factor.”

Four polling officials and nine security personnel were deployed at this booth.

An ASI of the Border Security Force, Rajkumar who was deployed here, added he had been all across the country for elections, but this was the first time children were playing hosts. “Bilkul ma ki tarah khana khila rahi hain yeh bachhiyan (These little girls are serving food just like mothers). We are armymen on duty. But even I could not refuse when one of the girls came with a plate of food and said, ‘uncle you have not taken anything since morning and you will fall ill if you don’t eat’. They are caring, full of energy, talkative and bright. Urban children should learn from them.”

ASI Sahjad Alam of Jharkhand Police, posted here, said these six schoolgirls had won everyone’s heart. “Polling party members don’t get time to even drink water, so having these children around really helped. They are well mannered, disciplined and I can tell you they will be good citizens.”

Assistant teacher of the school Manju Rose Khalkho, who is the booth-level official responsible for basic facilities for the polling party, said these girls had volunteered without prompting. “In fact, more children had volunteered earlier, but I refused saying children were not allowed at the polling station. But at 6am, these six girls, who are all good students, landed up in school saying they wanted to help. Their enthusiasm won me over,” the teacher said.