TIRUCHY: She is aged over 101 years, frail, and lived more than 120 km away from where her vote was. But that did not prevent G Kamatchi from making sure that she voted in the Lok Sabha election on Friday.
As polling commenced at 1,551 booths in Nagapattinam Lok Sabha Constituency at 7 am on Friday, the Election officials at Agara Konthagai Middle School booth were pleasantly surprised to meet the centurion.
This strong sense of responsibility seems to run in the family - her husband Ganapathy was a freedom fighter and member of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose’s Indian Nation Army.
Kamatchi, a resident of Vazhmangalam village in Nagapattinam, has been living at Puducherry for the past few years. As her name is in the voters’ list in her native village, she asked her family members to take her to Nagapattinam so that she could exercise her franchise.
Heeding to the request, her relatives took her to the village, which is around 120 km away and reached the polling booth.
Seeing her, her relatives and neighbours received her warmly and sought her blessings. Speaking to the media, Kamatchi said she has never missed even a single vote because she believed it was every citizen’s duty to participate in electing the representative to uphold democracy.
Finding herself as the centre of attraction at the polling booth, Kamatchi blessed a first-time voter and advised the youth who were looking at her with admiration to do their bit to reach 100 per cent voting. The officials ensured that she did not have to wait in the queue to vote.