Rebooting India: Realizing A Billion Aspirations - Plot & Excerpts
To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery. —Thomas Paine, ‘Dissertation on First Principles of Government’ (1795) IN THE 2012 Manipur assembly polls, eighty-year-old Tongsei Haokip and his wife Veinem cast their votes in Saitu constituency. Not particularly remarkable, except for the fact that the couple had been dead for some time. Apparently, they were not the only ones whose enthusiasm for exercising their franchise went beyond the grave; three other dead people also voted in the same constituency.1 On the other hand, many residents of Mumbai who happened to be very much alive found that they could not vote in the 2014 assembly elections because their names had been added to the list of deceased voters. Messages circulated on social media advising voters on what to do if they found themselves in this peculiar situation—they had to sign an affidavit that they were, contrary to the Election Commission’s belief, alive and residing in the area, and hence should be allowed to vote.
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