Uttarakhand assembly elections: Brothers vote before cremating father, motivate others too

DEHRADUN/UTTARKASHI: Two brothers -- Biresh and Rakesh Mohan Semwal -- set an example for electors after they chose to exercise their franchise and also urged other villagers to do so before they conducted last rites of their 92-year-old father who died of old age in the early hours of Monday, the day polling took place in Uttarakhand for the assembly elections.
The two brothers live in Yamunotri's Bandu village, which has a population of 225 voters. Their father, Bal Govind Semwal, died in Brahmakhal, around seven km away from their native village.
Biresh Semwal told TOI that the family urged villagers through the pradhan to first cast their vote and then visit their home to pay their respects to their father. "We didn’t want our father’s demise to become a reason for people not going to vote,” he said.
His elder brother, Rakesh Mohan Semwal, added that this was what their father would also have wished. "Our father was a person with strong democratic values. He believed in being responsible towards the country and was very particular about voting. We didn’t want to do anything that would hurt his soul.”
The brothers said that the entire process of carrying out the rituals and conducting the cremation would have taken about seven to eight hours. "On returning from the last rites, many villagers may have decided to skip voting. Thus, we decided to first push them all to the voting centre," Rakesh said.
Bandu village pradhan Keshav Prasad added, "Bal Govindji was a very public-spirited person. After his death, his sons have also set an example by following the path shown by him.”