May 10, 2008
Today I went to the polling booth near my house. With so much pessimism around, I went with minimal expectation. I may NOT be able to vote; my name may NOT be there; some one would have voted for me (none of them are uncommon in India with 1.2 billion people with 800 million eligible voters)
To my surprise, I found an agent giving me and my wife a “slip” (a small piece of paper) with Roll No 1441 & 1442 and Polling Station number 53. I did find one room wit the caption “53″; stood in the Q for 20 minutes; I was asked to go to the next room 52A (that was empty). There were 4 officials; one had a list with an entry that tallied with my name; he read it out; the next official asked me to sign; verified my signature with the signature on the Voter ID card; he gave me a sheet that I handed over to the next official; he applied the indelible mark on my left fore-finger and led me to the 4th official; she “unlocked” the polling station; I moved up to the station that was “covered” for privacy; I pressed the button corresponding to my choice (the name and party symbol was clearly visible); the 4th official heard a “beep” sound on her station and told me “over”. I had cast my vote! It took a comfortable 25 minutes but the process was fairly pleasant
Being on the Board of BEL (Bharat Electronics Ltd) that manufactures, supplies, maintains and operates EVMs (about 650,000 of them in use all over India) I felt very happy that India is using “electronic” voting very well in spite of million constraints on infrastructure front
Bangalore has voted; hopefully for a Government that cares for people, delivers results and goes beyond “fighting amongst themselves”
