Follow the ink: Big names cast their votes

In a nation that loves a good story, elections are the best form of storytelling. And like the tired old saying about Bollywood, which nevertheless must get trotted out on such occasions, this story has emotions, drama — and even mothers. We decided to look at this Great Indian Story through the eyes of some of its biggest protagonists as they walked into polling booths where the final die would be cast
LAXMI HEBBALKAR | CONGRESS, BELGAUM
‘All the signs were auspicious today’
At 6 am Thursday morning, wearing a bright yellow sari with a pink border, Laxmi Hebbalkar set out from her house.Stepping out, she made some phone calls to make sure polling was going on smoothly. Her mother Girija and son Mrinal followed her. “Its Thursday and yellow is my lucky colour. As I woke up I saw the a koyal (cuckoo) in my compound and a pot filled with water. All the signs are auspicious. I decided to vote at 10.30 am to coincide with the Mithuna lagna,’’ she said. Her mother performed the traditional pooja to Kolhapur Mahalaksmi and put a red tilak on Hebbalkar’s forehead and blessed her. As she had decided to fast, a few sips of Badam milk is all she had.
She also remembered to call her elder son, who was overseeing polling in villages, asking him not to forget to vote. “He is a first-time voter and is very excited about exercising his franchise,’’ she added. Hebbalkar voted at 10.30 am at polling centre No. 65 at Love Dale Central school, where she was joined by her mother and four sisters. Entering the polling booth, she came across an old Muslim couple. She spontaneously touched their feet and said: “Elect me once and see. You will love my work so much.’’ After casting her vote, she proceeded to visit the other polling booths in Belgaum.
RAMYA | CONGRESS, MANDYA
Chasing answers blowing in the wind
An early morning puja at Chamundeshwari temple, and actor-turned-MP Divya Spandana aka Ramya was good to go. Wearing a blue-and-white salwar kameez and a bright smile, she was at her polling booth in Ward 168, Vidyanagar, in Mandya, at 8.40am. Then, flashing an inked thumbs-up, Ramya began her constituency tour, her route map covering all eight assembly segments – Malavalli, Mandya, Maddur, Srirangapatna, KR Pet, KR Nagar, Melkote and Nagamangala – for a fair idea of how the election was progressing.
Enthusiastic voters had hit the booths in large numbers, while there were queues in others. Along the dusty road from Maddur through KM Doddi to Bannur and beyond, Ramya’s arrival, as usual, caused a flutter. As she’d walk into a booth for a quick chat with poll officials, the crowds would begin to swell. Well-wishers and petitioners would hang on at the windows of her Innova. Cops on duty would become anxious, and physically hold back supporters. In the bigger towns, it was handshakes, mobile photoshoots and last-minute exhortations to vote, while in the hamlets of Srirangapatna, entire families streamed out of their homes and sloganeering supporters blocked the road. Running into a JD(S) MLA and his group was part of the game, and had to be managed with smiles and civility.
Ramya knows some areas are in her pocket, but also acknowledges that the JD(S) holds its own in some belts. Having clocked 12,000km on her campaign trail, Thursday was a journey over the same terrain, quick pit-stops at booths, looking for any answers blowing in the wind.
V BALAKRISHNAN | AAP, BANGALORE CENTRAL
No temple visits for me, thank you
The ex-Infoscion has always been an early riser, as he made the commute from his Basaveshwaranagar home to Electronics City every day for several years. And Thursday was no different as he woke early to make his way to his assigned polling booth to cast his vote. “No temple visits for me. My home is my temple’’ he said as he walked into the polling booth on 7th Main, 3rd Block, 3rd Stage, Basaveshwara Nagar at 7.40 am. Accompanied by his mother, wife and daughter, the AAP candidate from Bangalore Central had 20 voters ahead of him in the queue. But as a person from the corporate world and a stickler for rules, Bala, as he is often referred to, waited patiently for his turn to enter the booth and exercise his franchise.
Balakrishnan’s mother V Rajaeshwari, 78, was the first of the family to vote. The queue had around 15 voters at the time and everyone made way for her when she slowly walked into the booth. With an assistant’s help, she completed the formalities and came out with a smile on her face. For his wife Chitra Balakrishnan, it was initially tough to accept that her husband, one of the top executives of Infosys, was on his way to becoming a politician. “I was not happy. I even told him ‘politics is not for people like us’. But now I’m convinced that my husband will serve people better through politics. And we will support him,” she said.
After the family had finished voting, they headed home for breakfast before hitting the roads again to visit polling stations. “I need to stay connected to people all the time. That’s what I have realized in these few months,’’ said Bala.
NANDAN NILEKANI | CONGRESS, BANGALORE SOUTH
Exhilarating but gruelling experience
By 9.30 am, the scene outside Reddy Jana Sangha College in Koramangala was likely to remind one of the kind of turnout reserved for visiting heads of states or really popular filmstars. When Nandan Nilekani arrived with his family to vote, he was promptly mobbed by the waiting journalists, photographers and TV crews. Dressed in the regulation white kurta-pajama and flanked by wife Rohini and daughter Jahnavi, Nilekani was pushing a wheelchair carrying his mother, Durga.
Apologising to people waiting in line to cast their ballots for going ahead of them, Nilekani and family headed for room 117, which did not seem to have much of a queue, followed by the same hurtling crowd of cameras from which Nilekani was anxious to shield his aged mother. There, in a pink-walled room with posters of Mickey Mouse all around, Nilekani and his family cast their votes – with, hopefully, some moments of privacy during the ‘secret ballot’. Coincidentally, Infosys co-founder and current executive vice-chairman of Infosys Kris Gopalakrishnan was seen voting in the next room. On being asked if he had voted Congress, the typically sardonic Gopalakrishnan answered: “You don’t expect me to tell you that, do you?” Voting over, the Nilekanis made their halting way out, stopped for photo-ops every few seconds, but smiling throughout. As they got into the car, someone yelled at Jahnavi through the open window: “Do you think your dad will win?” “Yes, definitely!” she said, grinning widely and giving a thumbs-up. Later in the day, while visiting other booths in his constituency, Nilekani said: “I found the experience of contesting elections both exhilarating and gruelling. I have a wider appreciation of the challenges Bangaloreans of various backgrounds face. I have a better understanding of the nuances of issues that are important to voters. And I am confident of victory as the only wave in town was the anti-Ananth Kumar wave.”
GITA SHIVRAJKUMAR | JD(S), SHIMOGA
‘It’s up to God to decide the results’
After a four-hour drive from Shimoga to Bangalore, Gita Shivrajkumar exercised her franchise at a school in Nagawara at 4.30 pm with her husband, actor Shivrajkumar. The couple visited a couple of booths earlier in the day in Shimoga, where she is contesting. After ensuring that party supporters would take care of things for the rest of the day, she started her journey. “I campaigned for almost 25 days without a break from March 24 after I filed my nomination papers. I am really happy with the response I have got from the people. Since I campaigned with people from the panchayat level, it helped me to meet a lot of people and also know what my father (former CM S Bangarappa) had done for the constituency,” she said. This unexpected turn in her life, Gita said, made her aware of many issues in the constituency. “I visited 38 panchayats in Thirthahalli assembly segment, but could not do the same for Sorab. But people there told me there was no need for me to visit,” she said, indicating that her father had done his bit for the constituency. Shivrajkumar, who was with her during most of her campaign, summed up: “We have done our best and it is left for God to decide now.” The couple will be in Bangalore for a few more days before heading back to Shimoga to await the elections results.
SHOBHA KARANDLAJE | BJP, UDUPI-CHIKMAGALUR
A jet-setting sort of day for Shobha
Always an early riser, Shobha Karandlaje had all the more reason to do it on Thursday. She had to cast her vote as soon as the polling booth opened to rush to the Kempegowda International Airport to catch a flight to Mangalore. She’s a registered voter in Bangalore but she’s a candidate from Udupi-Chikmagalur. “I did not visit any temple in Bangalore. I went to the polling booth near the BDA office in Kumara Park at 7am and from there rushed to the airport,’’ she added. Landing at Mangalore international airport at 8.45am, she proceeded to Udupi, 60km away. The second-most important thing on her agenda for the day was to visit the Sri Krishna Temple at 9.45am, where she spent around 20 minutes. She did not talk to any seers at the temple. After darshan, she visited the booths to check the voting pattern. At 5pm, she was at Perdoor booth in Kapu constituency, 18km from Udupi. Once polling ended at 6pm, she came to Udayavara near Katpadi en route to Puttur. “I want to attend the Sri Mahalingeshwara Rathotsava in Puttur which is my home town,’’ she said.
HN ANANTH KUMAR | BJP, BANGALORE SOUTH
Ananth is hoping to hit a sixer
It was 9am. Clad in a kurta and a saffron shawl with multiple threads on his wrist, minister of Parliament from Bangalore South HN Ananth Kumar arrived at RV Teachers’ Training College near Ashoka Pillar in Jayanagar. He declined to talk to journalists but confidently flashed a V-sign. But his smile couldn’t hide the fact that he was tense. Accompanied by wife Tejaswini, daughter Aishwarya, mother-in-law Pratibha Oak and other relatives, he briskly walked towards the polling station. There were other voters already waiting in the queue. While some invited Kumar to jump the queue, one woman objected. “No hurry. Let’s follow the rules,” said Kumar as he joined the queue with his family members. As he waited for around 20 minutes, he introduced some journalists to his family members. Aishwarya, a lawyer with a private firm, explained how her father prepared for the big day. “He wakes up early morning, before 6am, I guess.
For around 30 minutes he was in the prayer room where he performed puja, did some meditation and read shlokas from the Bhagwad Gita. Then we all had pongal for breakfast and left for the polling station,” she said. Once there, he ensured that he had crossed the 100-metre jurisdiction outside the polling booth before giving the media soundbites and flashing the ink mark on his thumb. “My victory will resonate much like the sixer struck by Indian caption MS Dhoni in the final moments of the World Cup Cricket 2011 finals. During the previous NDA government, it was an Atal-Ananth combination. This time, people will support the Modi-Ananth partnership,” he said.
HD DEVE GOWDA | JD(S), HASSAN
Waiting for rahu kaala to pass
It was just another day in the life of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, who has seen many ups and downs in 52 years of his political career. Unlike other politicians and contestants, he was neither tense nor was anxiety writ large on his face. But Gowda took time to visit booth number 244 of Hassan parliamentary constituency at Paduvalhippe village, which for all practical reasons, has become the home base of this JDS patriarch. His son Revanna also lives here. He had spent the previous night at Revanna’s residence at Holenarasipur town, woke up early in the morning to visit a series of temples in the vicinity. Though journalists had been waiting at Paduvalhippe polling booth since 7.15am, he arrived only at 12.30pm, one hour before rahu kaala (the inauspicious time as per the Hindu calendar) begins. Prior to that he visited the Lakshmi Narashima Swamy temple in the town along with his wife Channamma, son Revanna, and grandson Dr Suraj (elder son of Revanna and Bhavani Revanna). Later, he went to his family deity Eshwara’s temple at Hardanahalli and then to Ranganathaswamy temple at Mavankere and Lakshmi temple at Paduvalhippe. He was the last man to cast his vote in the family. Later, he told reporters that he would not leave Hassan till the votes had been counted.
“I will stay back in Hassan spending time reading newspapers and mythological books,” he said, denying that he was travelling to other states to canvass for Third Front parties candidates. He returned to Holenarsipur and rested, besides keeping himself updated on the polling percentage in Chikkaballapur constituency where his son, former CM HD Kumaraswamy, is contesting.