Bhadaru, 127, will vote again!
Juggar (Himachal Pradesh), May 3: He has seen kings, the British, Mahatma Gandhi and today's politicians - and is not very impressed with the present lot. However, 127-year-old Bhadaru is determined to exercise his right to vote when Himachal Pradesh goes to the polls May 13.
"The best period was of the kings, because they took care of the common man. Now the government is selfish; it thinks about the rich," Bhadaru said at his small wooden house in this hamlet up in the Himalayas, 60 km from state capital Shimla.
Age has made him partially blind and deaf but has not diminished any of his verve.
"My eyesight is failing, my body is frail, but I will exercise my franchise this time too," said Bhadaru, who goes by one name.
He was among independent India's first voters in the 1952 elections to the first Lok Sabha. "I still have some memories of the first elections held in independent India. At that time, I voted for the party of Jawaharlal Nehru," he said.
"Sadly, corruption has now become a way of life. The freedom fighters and revolutionaries had never thought that politicians would practise money-politics. Parties hardly approach the people with genuine policies nowadays."
Lying on a cot in front of his house, Bhadaru reminisced: "The best period was of the kings because they took care of the common man." Local kings had limited autonomy in British-ruled India.
"Now the government is selfish, it thinks only about the rich. And why do we have to have election every five years? What good does it do?
"Look, this village is still not connected by a metalled road. We are still living in the same conditions as over a century ago."
"Bhadaru, 127, son of Karamu, will exercise his franchise at polling station number 35 in the Kasumpti constituency (no. 62) on May 13. His voter number is 226," the state's chief electoral officer Anil Khachi said.
It is part of the Shimla Lok Sabha constituency, where the frontrunners in this poll are Virender Kashyap of the state's ruling Bharatiya Janata party and the sitting MP, Dhani Ram Shandil of the Congress.
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