By IANS,
New Delhi : For Ramesh Kumar, a resident of north Delhi, Thursday was no ordinary day – not only because he got married but also because he took out time to go and vote.
“We have voted. I had to think hard about choosing the candidate – harder than choosing my life partner. The latter was an easy option for me,” said Ramesh, all set for the wedding ceremony.
Thursday was an auspicious day for Hindu weddings. While there are no confirmed figures, priests estimated there were more than 10,000 weddings in the capital – on the very day of the polling for the 15th Lok Sabha.
“There are around 10,000 to 15,000 weddings scheduled for Thursday. It is Narsimha Jayanti – a very auspicious day. It is said that the time and planetary movements will be favourable for a wedding,” Ravinder Nagar, head priest of the Lakshmi Narayan Temple, told IANS.
He said there was such a ‘wedding rush’ that priests from neighbouring towns like Sonepat and Panipat were called to Delhi.
Bhupinder Kaur, a resident of West Delhi, said: “My daughter is getting married Thursday evening. There are preparations to be done. I don’t think I will have time to vote. But we will try.”
Many candidates briefed party workers and polling agents to appeal to families busy with wedding preparations to come and vote early.
“I am aware that this would affect the voter turnout. Still we are trying our best. We have instructed our polling agents to tally with the voter list from time to time and talk them into coming early to vote. This should work to some degree,” Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party secretary Virender Sachdeva told IANS.
Over 11 million people were eligible to vote in Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha constituencies.
Incidentally, on Nov 29, 2008 when the Delhi assembly elections were held, nearly 20,000 weddings had taken place. The voter turnout then was 59.78 percent.