Centenarians vote with youthful vigour

New Delhi: Age is just a number, says a family member of 111-year-old Bachan Singh, the oldest voter in Delhi who carried a youthful enthusiasm into the polling station in Tilak Nagar here. Centenarian Bachan Singh and 110-year-old Ram Pyari Sankhwar were the oldest man and woman respectively to cast their vote for the Lok Sabha election in the national capital on Sunday.

However, this time, it was a pleasant experience for Bachan Singh and Shankwar, who have been voting since India's first general election following Independence, as they were taken to the polling booth in a car by polling staff and also dropped back.

Overwhelmed by this gesture of the Delhi's Chief Electoral Office, they claimed it was a "VIP experience" for them as they felt "important". Till the last assembly election in 2015, Singh cycled to the polling booth to cast his vote. This time, he reached the booth in a car along with poll officers in full media glare. He was later wheeled into the polling both using a chair. A paralysis attack around three months ago had rendered the centenarian bedridden.

Though Bachan Singh cannot talk like the way he did before, but he knows how important his vote is. "I will vote for those who worked for us," he said. Interestingly, Singh doesn't know there's a party called the Aam Aadmi Party and that Arvind Kejriwal is the Chief Minister of Delhi.

"He doesn't even know that the Aam Aadmi Party exists. For him, every election has been a contest between the BJP and the Congress," his youngest son, Jasbeer Singh, 63, says. Jasbeer Singh claims his father has never missed out on an election since 1951.

Sankhwar, who is suffering from age-related ailments for the last one decade, exercised her franchise in Kondli. Her son Ram Dhani said his mother was overwhelmed as she was taken to the polling station in a car which had the mark of the Government of India with a Delhi constable escorting her.

"They treated me like a VIP," she said. "Four days back, the district magistrate and the SDM had come to our house to invite my mother to cast her vote. They also honoured her with bouquets and a shawl," her son said.