Women, elderly brave scorching sun to cast vote

Braving the scorching summer, 72 -year-old Sudha Mehta came alone to exercise her franchise in the municipal polls today, but she wore a smile on her face.

"I have been voting for the last 35 years in the MCD elections. Come any weather, I have voted," she said.

A resident of Chandni Chowk ward in Old Delhi, Mehta was among the electorate in the NDMC area who came to vote early.

Many women came out to exercise their franchise in the morning.

"My husband and whole family went together early. We do it without fail every election. It is fun," said a homemaker, in south Delhi's Andrews Ganj ward.
 

Another woman Usha came to vote along with her three daughters.

"I will vote for a party that promises to help me with the marriage of my daughters. Our councillors have dejected us every time, whether it's sanitation or other issues. I hope some change will come this time," she said.

Flashing her inked ring finger, her daughter Kirti said, "This is the second time I voted in MCD polls. I do not have very high hopes from the candidates but we must do our duty and not waste our vote by abstaining".

At 4 PM, over 60.11 lakh votes were cast, 45.11 per cent of the total electorate strength for these polls.

As per the last leg of the tabulation for polling which ended at 5:30 PM, over 50 per cent women had exercised their franchise.

More than 1.3 crore people are eligible to vote in the civic elections for 272 wards, spread over 13,000 polling stations across the national capital.

As per the new delimitation exercise, based on the 2011 Census, each ward now has an average of 60,000 people with an estimated 40,000 voters.

Delhi has 70 Assembly seats and before the delimitation, every constituency had four wards, but now it ranges from 3 to 7.

The erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was trifurcated in 2012 into North, South and East Municipal Corporations.

There are 1,004 candidates vying in the NDMC area, 985 in SDMC and 548 in EDMC.