(Snigdha has keen interest towards developmental sciences, numbers, data that shape societies.)The world's largest democracy going to polls, the second most expensive elections in the world where the spending limit on each seat is a whopping $117000 (Rs 70 lakh) but what about those who make this process possible.
As an excited first time voter, I received my voter card a few weeks ago. Not only was I excited about voting for the first time in the country where I was born but I felt a sense of responsibility to choose the type of governance I wanted.
A government employee, BLO, visits residents to make sure we have our voter card well in time before the day of voting. Today as I sat there in my lounge watching the top stories on TV, the door bell rang. There stood a tall man drenched in sweat holding a pile of papers and a satchel. It was 14:30 hrs and the sun was blaring hot in the sky. I invited him inside for some cool drink but he refused the offer and asked for a glass of water. Upon asking him he said he had been going from one house to the other on foot delivering voter cards to approximately 45 houses. I was shocked to know that he wasn't given any mode of transportation to do this service to the people. In a country where public transport is easily available, the office neither provided him a cycle nor a bike. He travels on foot to cover the CR Park neighbourhood in the Southern suburbs of Delhi everyday to deliver voter cards that enable us to go vote.
A system which is spending thousands of crores on elections, does it have no space for the people who make the process happen? These are people who are working round the clock so we can exercise our right and choose people to represent us.
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