Despite failing health, senior citizens lead charge

The youth might be the future of the country, but it is the senior citizens who are shaping its present. This was evident on Tuesday as many, despite handicap and failing health, travelled to the polling booths to exercise a what many of them believe is a hard-won right. 

Jagannath Vilankar Appa, 75, a resident of Saki Naka, Andheri (E), has been voting since 1955 when he was 21 years old, and on Tuesday too, he made it a point to caste his vote. He walked for 30 minutes from his home to the polling booth despite his right leg being fractured.

“I have been voting since the last 54 years, yet I feel the same excitement every time I vote,” said Appa. He had seen many governments of various political parties come and go at the Center and the state level, but more poignantly, he says he has seen all of them make and then break promises.

In spite of that, however, he hasn’t lost hope and is confident that life will become better. “Earlier there were two or three parties and it was easier to choose. Now there are so many candidates and you do not know which party they belong to or what they stand for,” he noted.

Another voter Kashibai Janu Laad, 90, from Sahar village, walked for 20 minutes to a polling booth at Sahar to cast her vote. “It is my right, which we have earned through the freedom struggle and I think every Indian should exercise it,” said Laad with a toothy grin.
“Today, youngsters shy away from voting, but are quick to blame the government or the system if anything goes wrong. I wish they knew how much we have struggled to get this ink dot on our fingers,” she says.

At youth hotspots like Versova and Lokhandwala in Andheri west and Juhu in Vile Parle (W), the trend was the same—seniors outnumbering the young voters. A 24-year-old Mithibai College student, who was chatting with his friends very close to a polling booth in Juhu, quipped, “Every candidate is here to make money and each party has its personal agenda. No one cares for the public and the country. It’s only a money making business.”

However, at many places throughout the city, youngsters, especially the eager first-time voters, were seen lending a helping hand to the seniors who had turned up to vote.
And then there was cruel irony for some. Edwin Lewis, a 65-year-old senior citizen from Borivli IC Colony got a shock when he found that the electoral list had him down as a 27-year-old. “I have voted six times so far and this is the first time I am seeing myself so young,” he said, bemused.