At an election where polling percentage was expected to be low, some brave super-senior citizens led the way by exercising their democratic duty. It is partly because of them that the over-all polling percentage crossed 72 in the civic polls.
At Hariyana Vidya Mandir, 82-year-old Surendranath Mondal was bent with back pain as he was escorted into the booth by his wife and daughter. "I had to come. I've never missed an election, come rain, shine or Covid,” he smiled.
CK Block’s Santosh Kumar Ganguly, 97, and DL Block’s Amalakanta Mukherjee, 92, were greeted by neighbours and admired for their enthusiasm as they trudged into Sri Aurobindo Institute of Education. They came with sticks and walkers but vote they would.
As Bholanath Bose, 91, walked into the HA Block community centre, both the policeman on duty and a polling agent familiar to him came forward to help him up the few steps leading into the poling booth.
Dilip Kumar Raychaudhuri, 90, enters DA community centre.
In GC Block, S.C. Dutta, 86, supported his 76-year-old wife Namita as she walked with obvious discomfort to the community centre to vote. “I have half a leg. I lost much of my mobility seated at home in the lockdown,” the retired gynaecologist sighed. Her husband, also a doctor, had not opted to vote at home during the Assembly election despite being of eligible age. “I was told a team would come to supervise the polling and there was no way I would want so many outsiders inside my house at the peak of the Covid wave,” said Dutta. Both had trudged all the way to the community centre in May, just as they did last Saturday. “Etuku parbo na? We used to stand in long queues holding umbrellas over our heads for years in the past on election day. Now there is hardly any queue,” he reasoned.
Lily Dutta, 83, too, did not let osteoarthritis keep her home and reached Apeejay School to do her “duty”.
Ward 29 Left Front candidate Saswati Mondal greets Santosh Kumar Ganguly, 97.
But not everyone was as dutiful in the face of fear. “My house overlooks the booth at Aikatan so I peeped out and came when I saw it empty,” said 78-year-old Ila Talukar of IA Block. “But my neighbour, who is older than me, has decided not to come at all.”
DA Block voter Lala T. Das could hardly blame neighbours for staying away from the booth this year. “So many have died of Covid in our own block. We would get WhatsApp messages about their demise and it’s bound to evoke fear among residents,” he grimaced.
Some elderly residents had availed the “vote from home” facility provided by the Election Commission of India for those above the age of 80 during last year’s Assembly polls and rued that the option was not available this time.
IA Block’s Gita Saha was not one of them. “I am very active and never stayed grounded at home even in the peak of the pandemic,” said the octogenarian, who had sat down to chat with friends after voting at Aikatan. “Previously we used to meet at the IA Block library but very few people are going there now. I’ve had Covid once and am not afraid of it.”
Both 85-year-old Mira Majumdar and 79-year-old Kankan Kumar Ghosh, FD Block residents, had got Covid in the third wave. “I was asymptomatic,” Majumdar says. Ghosh and his wife Tanuka too got it mild. “We stayed put at home for 10 days. That was all,” he said.
Memories of the violence in the 2015 elections loomed large. Nemai Das, 82, became worried on spotting “outsiders” in the queue at his polling station at AG Block Primary School. “Some of them must have voted,” he said later. And by the time, he walked out there were large gatherings of rival parties threatening to have a go at each other, as the police tried hard to keep peace. “When will they let us vote in peace?” he wondered, despondently, recounting how trouble had broken out just after he had voted in 2015.
Veteran balloters
Dilip Kumar Raychaudhuri, 90, has never missed a vote. “I even accompanied my elder brothers to the first election in independent India in 1952. The voting age back then was 21 and I was too young to cast my franchise. But I was fascinated by the idea,” smiled the DA Block resident.
Chandrasekhar Bose, who turned 99 in December, had an amusing tale about his first vote. “I was underage but was taken by my cousin to cast false votes!” laughed the IB Block resident. “That was in 1940 in Patna. My genuine first vote was in 1946 to elect a candidate as the Prime Minister of Bengal, a post that was dissolved after Independence.”
Maybe later
The FD Block community hall looked forlorn at 10am. “Out of 647 voters in our booth, only 91 have come so far. Perhaps they will come once the sun shines brighter,” said Saumitra Mukherjee, a Trinamul Congress polling agent.
He definitely had a valid point. “I wouldn’t have come if it was colder. I stay on the fourth floor of my house,” said Shibaji Dasgupta, 72.
Even besides the fear of Covid, voting was clearly not a priority for everyone.
An elderly resident was seen approaching the booth around Purbachal Market but he wasn’t going to vote. “I had gone for my morning walk and shall buy fruits on the way home. I haven’t decided whether to vote or not, I’ll think about it later,” he said.
It was the same with another pepper-haired man around IA Market. At BA Block a resident was seen hurriedly crossing— but not entering the booth at — Salt Lake School. “I might vote later,” he said. “Now I’m headed to the hospital for my booster shot!”
Pictures by Brinda Sarkar and Sudeshna Banerjee
Did you or did you not cast your vote this time? Write to The Telegraph Salt Lake, 6 Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001 or email to saltlake@abp.in
