88-yr-old grandson of Nandalal Bose makes it after 2nd attempt

Kolkata: What celebrated painter Nandalal Bose's grandson's family went through on Thursday just to cast their vote exemplified the hurdles that citizens had to cross to exercise their democratic rights. The 88-year-old man, Suprabuddha Sen, and his wife Deepa Sen, 82, who got back their voting right after the tribunal cleared their case following Supreme Court intervention, were made to leave the booth with poll officials decreeing that they needed a written order from the district magistrate to cast vote. But, the elderly couple were given VIP treatment and escorted to the booth at around 4 pm to cast their vote after the matter was escalated to the level of DM.Suprabuddha and his wife Deepa were knocked out of the roll despite submitting all relevant documents along with their caretaker Chakradhar Nayek. "After all the hassles in the morning, we finally managed to cast our vote at around 4 pm. The SDO and other officials sent vehicles to pick me up. The cars were waiting since afternoon. But I went in my car. The two cars went ahead and my car followed them to the polling booth. It was a total VIP treatment. I can only say that the hassle could have been avoided but ‘all's well that ends well'. This is probably my last vote."Deepa said, "We've voted every time. Even this time, when everyone was voting in front of me in the morning, I couldn't. I was feeling bad. At last, I am happy to exercise my democratic right smoothly."While Suprabuddha managed to vote in the second attempt, his wife cast her vote in the third attempt on Thursday at Visva Bharati Staff Club. "At around 7.15 am, I along with Chakradhar went to the booth to cast our votes. I told the BLO that our names appeared on the supplementary list published on Wednesday, but he told us that only those names that are there on their list can vote. We showed him the list on the phone. After that he went inside, spoke to someone and came back only to say that it wouldn't happen this time. The security personnel standing near the queue told me to get a printout of the list. I sat outside the booth for half an hour while Chakradhar tried to print the list. We came back home around 8.30 am without voting," she added.At 10.15 am, Suprabuddha, Deepa and Chakradhar went to the booth with all documents. "I was a bit reluctant but my wife convinced me to go along with her. Our intention was to cast our votes as our names were deleted without any fault of ours and were reinstated after a lot of trouble. After reaching the polling booth, my wife and I sat inside the car as there was too much heat outside while Chakradhar went and showed our documents to the polling officials. They called a high-ranking police officer. He arrived and told him that we needed to get it in writing from the district magistrate in Suri and only then we could vote. Taking on such a task at this age and in this heat was not possible so we returned home without voting," said Suprabuddha.Their daughter, Esha Dutta, escalated the matter to DM's office through an acquaintance and then the octogenarian couple managed to vote after DM's intervention. "This shows the lack of coordination, which led to the harassment of two elderly voters," she added.
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