111-year old Bachan Singh, the oldest voter in Delhi casts vote

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 Vihar here. Till the last assembly elections in 2015, the centenarian 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 AAP 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.

"Till a few years ago, he would cycle to the polling booth and cast his vote. He never needed any help. He cooked for himself and spent most of time doing seva in gurdwara," Jasbeer says. The family says they have traditionally voted for the Congress because former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru "supported Namdhari Sikhs at the time of partition". But they think the Aam Aadmi party should be given another chance in Delhi.

The national capital recorded a turnout of over 7 per cent in the first two hours of polling on Sunday, with North East Delhi recording the maximum voting percentage among seven constituencies, poll officials said. Voting began at 7 am on and it is scheduled to go on till 6 pm. "The total turn out in first two hours was 7.67 per cent," a senior official in the Delhi CEO Office said. Data from all polling booths has not yet been compiled.

Voting percentage recorded in the seven constituencies are -- Chandni Chowk - 6.90 per cent; North East Delhi - 8.61; East Delhi - 8.31; New Delhi - 6.48; North West Delhi - 8.00; West Delhi - 8.33; and South Delhi - 7.05 pe cent. Polling began in the morning in all seven Lok Sabha constituencies here in the sixth phase of general elections, with prominent names including former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Union minister Harsh Vardhan and cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir in the fray. Over 1.43 crore people in Delhi are eligible to vote in this election which will decide the fate of 164 candidates, of which 18 are women. There are 43 independent candidates.

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Edited by mid-day online desk with inputs from Agencies