To Vote or Not To Vote?

Every citizen of India is given a number of fundamental rights. One such fundamental right is the right to vote. In a country with such a huge and diverse population, one’s voice tends to get lost. Hence our votes act as our voices. However small, when put together they form the vociferous Voice of our Nation, our state, our municipal corporations etc. Yet, in the Municipal Corporation Elections of Kolkata, October 2015, the voices of the common people were snatched away from them in broad daylight.

For the Ruling Party, the poll results of Salt Lake were especially important so as to prove to the Nation that they are not losing out on the trust of the sophisticated, urban voters. In fact, one of their legislators (who care which one) guaranteed that if any voter with a valid voter card is unable to exercise his right to vote, then he’ll fight for their cause! But as we all know, some people and some political parties are just full of lies. The elections held on October 3, 2015 at Salt Lake were extremely peaceful. It was so peaceful that residents couldn’t recall when the last time that elections were accompanied with such calm environment was! Hundreds and thousands of goons, bouncers and villagers flocked the polling booths. They forcefully stood in the queues meant for the voters. When reporters quizzed them about their address, they came up with answers that shocked the hell out of the original residents of those areas. Leaving a few, most residents turned up to the polling booth only to realize that their votes had already been cast and the booths were under the complete control of outsiders!

Luckily I was the second voter (and the first female voter) from my block. Hence I was able to exercise my right. However my neighbors who turned up later, informed us of the mass rigging. The first couple of hours were peaceful, the next couple filled with turmoil and after that the only votes cast were purely false in nature. Polling agents of the Opposition Party were threatened, harassed, beaten up and finally they were forcefully removed. In my ward, even the candidate (who is a favorite of the locals) was beaten when she refused to comply with the threats of the Ruling Party. The news channels were overflowing with horrifying images and videos of people being inhumanely thrashed for standing up against oppression. Even reporters and photographers were not spared. The funniest part was the role of the police. At some places the police, residents and opposition party members tried to chase away the false voters only to be greeted with bombs. However in my ward, the police didn’t even raise their head to look the complainants in the eyes. They simply didn’t budge their asses from their seats!

The person appointed by the Chief Minister concluded that the election procedure went smoothly without any disturbance. The areas where re-election were announced turned out to be the handful of those areas which indeed had a serene voting environment on the original day (no sarcasm here), even though most people didn’t turn up out of either fear or the realization that their votes really do not matter especially in a state which is being run by a bunch of greedy good-for-nothing hooligans.