A grandmother and a mother and her two daughters stepped out for a family outing in Dehradun in Uttarakhand this morning - to cast their votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, which began today with 102 contests across 21 states and union territories.
A photo shared by news agency ANI showed Prabha Sharma (the grandmother) and her daughter, Preeti Kaushik standing either side of their Shamita and Sakshi Kaushik, their granddaughters and daughters. All four are proudly displaying inked fingers, the mark of having cast their votes.
All five of Uttarakhand's Lok Sabha seats are voting today. The BJP won all five seats in the 2019 election, and also won the Assembly election last year, thumping the Congress. The saffron party won 47 of the 70 Assembly seats, an impressive return if it was 10 seats fewer than last time.
The Congress won just 19 seats, but that was an increase of eight seats and a 4.39 per cent vote share. The opposition party will hope that improvement can carry over into this election.
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Dehradun falls under the Haridwar seat, which has been held by the BJP's Ramesh Pokhriyal since 2014, before which it was held by former Chief Minister Harish Rawat for the Congress.
The BJP has, however, given this ticket to Trivendra Singh Rawat, who served briefly as the Chief Minister, in this election. The Congress has fielded Virender Rawat as the joint opposition candidate.
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Meanwhile, elsewhere in Uttarakhand, a newly married couple, in their wedding finery, posed outside a government school-turned-polling booth in Pauri Garhwal after having cast their votes.
The Garhwal seat has also been with the BJP since 2014, with BC Khanduri winning first and then Tirath Singh Rawat in 2019. This time Anil Baluni has the BJP ticket. He faces the Congress' Ganesh Godiyal.
