Editor,
Queuing up for voting is always an interesting yet fearful experience. The security personnel looking around for trouble makers focus on you. Agents of political parties scan you to see if you are a supporter or an opponent. Once you are in then comes the routine procedures of checking the voters slip and the EPIC card with the wait for the new slip that has to be submitted to an officer who is busy chewing betel nut, probably the only allowed food for them from 7am to 4pm. Before handing in the slip another official asks you to extend your left hand so that he can put an indelible ink mark on the index finger. He administers the solution as meticulously as the trained nurse does with the polio drops into the mouths of sleeping infants. Without undergoing this ritual one is not allowed to press the button for the candidate of one’s choice. And now with that black solution the half moon of my nails become invisible for the next one month because I chose to exercise my right to vote and I have to carry this ugly mark for a month . I wonder what my female counterparts who polish their nails artistically must be feeling with the presence of this cocktail combination on their costly nail polish administered by a manicurist . My question to the powerful EC is this; why this useless exercise? This was something of the pre Seshan era when there were no photo ID cards. Now with the EPIC and the ticking of the person’s name against the photo he or she can never return to vote again unless the polling officers close an eye and the agents are fully asleep. I wonder why the EC prescribes this for a free and fair poll? I hope it is not because the supplier of this concoction is the beneficiary and the EC somewhere somehow gets the kickbacks as in the recent defense purchase scams. If they have already enough stock for the next general elections they would do well to auction it to some companies making permanent markers that can use it more effectively. If this outdated, unnecessary ordeal can be done away with imagine the number of people who will not have to go on election duty and the amount of money that will be saved for the exchequer both for the non- purchase of the magic concoction and the number of people less needed for applying this ugly liquid on the beautiful fingers of good citizens of India. I earnestly hope that the EC will rethink the need of using this indelible ink solution to further free and fair elections in the largest democracy in the world.
Yours etc.,
Devasia Vazhayil
Laitkor, Shillong.