Reading the title , don’t be misled that I just got eligible to vote ! Though its been many donkey years that I had gone pass the legally eligible voting age of 18 , its only this year I got my name included in the electoral list ! well , better late than never , isn’t it ?
After wasting my right to vote for so many years , I finally decided to be a responsible citizen . So few months back , I went and collected the Form- 6 for including my name in the electoral list. The form was as good as Greek and German for me as it was typed in Kannada language. I kept it aside , hoping to fill it someday with the help of somebody. I totally forgot about it , with many other issues and sub issues and no issues but laziness to blame !
One day , Jaago Re guys woke me up ! Their campaign on net and TV reactivated the ‘responsibility’ gene in me. I logged in to their website and dutifully filled my details as well as my wife’s detail . Thanks to Jaago Re team , 5 minutes of keying in , my Form – 6 was ready and emailed to me ! They had even mentioned the office address where I have to submit it .
So armed with the printed copy of the Form – 6 , I went to the Voters Facilitation
Centre in our area. There were two queues . One long one and another short . I was told the short one is for submitting the new application. 5 minutes wait . My application was submitted. I was happy ! Things went smooth after all . I was told to come after 15 days to check if my name is included or not . Once included , I could get my EPIC ( Electors Photo Identity Card )
I was thrilled that am going to cast my first vote ! Recently in Rajasthan assembly election State PCC president , CP Joshi lost the seat by just one vote so who knows my one vote could be the decisive one too !
Exactly after 15 days , I went to the Voters Facilitation Centre to check if my name is included are not in the list . When I went there , there was one very long queue .. Instead of standing in queue , I went near the counter to see if there is any notice over there that could give me bit of some information . There was to be no information. I was in double mind , should I stand in queue or not . I asked one person , who walked down from the counter , what his submission date is . His was some date earlier to me. I talked to few others and came to know those who submitted before my date of submission only have not got their name included yet in their list . So people stood for many hours only to see , if their name is included or not !!! If only the election commission has made the process easy by putting a notice that applications received till so and so date has been included , things would have been easy and people would not have to wait hours just to be told to come on later date. It could in fact speed up matters for them too. Anyways , I walked back without standing in queue.
I went twice after that only to find still bigger queue. I decided to go on weekend. Two weekends , I slept off . By the time I woke up , there was double bigger queue waiting for me in the centre.
Finally , someone said April 8th is the last date , so I decided I would brave the crowd and check my status . Since they open the counter at 8 , I decided to go by 6:30 only , hoping to beat the queue. By the time I kicked my lazy ass and managed to reach there , it was 7:30 and i was greeted by some 200 people waiting ahead of me ! I cursed myself but then decided to join the patience club. It was one truly secular queue ! With people of all gender, caste , creed , religion and social strata waiting patiently , all for the sake of Indian democracy ! Some sensible ones had bought along newspapers , books , water cans and even tiffin ! Thank God , I carried my earphone so i got hooked to Illayaraja’s tunes stocked in my mobile!
India is the global back office when it comes to ITEs but our government agencies have their own way of providing ‘ prompt ’ services. There were two system to manage the huge queue and they took their own sweet time to process . Finally when my turn came , it was 12:40 noon ! 5 hours in queue ! I never had stood for so long in a queue till date but then I was happy to find out that my name was included in the electoral list and am eligible to cast my vote in this upcoming election !
Then the next issue was to get EPIC . I have to stand again for another 5 hours most probably and with only one more day left . I realized I will skip that anyways it is not mandatory to have EPIC to vote and if the name is included I can always furnish any one of other approved documents . So I decided to collect the EPIC later once the election is over and they restart the EPIC issuance .
I overhead many people complaining about how EC could have simplified the entire process of electoral process. Why others even I had my own share of advices for them to better the working process . But then later I realized , If EC has to be blamed , we public are also to be equally blamed. The whole process of Electoral name inclusion and EPIC is going on for many , many months much before the official election dates were announced. If we had cared to apply then , we could have avoided standing in huge queues ..
Anyways 5 hours of standing and now am armed with my vote power and looking forward to the next queue when I would be standing to cast my vote ! Am I thrilled ? Yes !!!
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very-very-very congrats!!!
my side of story is that i have an Voter ID card but my place of work, my karmbhooomi, is good 6 hr drive from my constituency. Still not getting enough ‘kicks’ to go to vote this summer…
amen !!!