Seniors were the first to vote in Chandivali Constituency

9 am: The Chandivali constituency looked all geared up as citizens across three polling stations were seen in big numbers. A majority of them were senior citizens and looked brimming with excitement as they got to exercise their right again.

Speaking to Spice Enquirer, R.K. Sen (75), a retired agricultural scientist and his wife Shondha Sen (72) said, “We have been looking forward to this day for a couple of weeks now. We have voted for around 20 elections in our lives now, and the fifth time in this constituency, so we are happy.”

Another senior citizen Damayanti Parmar (70) said, “I have lived and voted here all my life. I feel there is something more our representatives could have done for us. Never the less, I am alright with it, as something’s better than nothing.”

Ramesh Khushani (66) and Soni Khushani (65), voted before going out for their usual morning walk. They said that they make sure that each election day, nobody in their house comes back home before they’ve voted, adding, “First we will vote and then go for our morning walk. We believe that if don’t vote, we don’t have any right to criticize anybody.”

P. Joshi (70), a retired school teacher urged youngsters to vote, adding, “Because yours (Spice Enquirer’s) is an online news portal and youngsters read it, I most humbly urge them to vote and exercise their right.”

Speaking about the voter turnouts, Lahu Anekar, an Election Commission official said, “I have 5 lists of names of booth numbers 57-61, and there are around 6,000 voters on these five lists.”

However, he was unable at the time to say what percentage had already voted. In 2014, the total turnout for the Constituency was 44.31 percent with the Congress candidate Arif Naseem Khan winning.

Written by Journalism students Harsh Mahatme and Laveena D’Souza