Good ol' days: When ballot boxes had colours, leaders walked the streets

CHENNAI: Walking into a polling booth in Saidapet, 22-year-old K Mahalingam was least bothered that everyone in the booth would know which party he was voting for. After all, a secret ballot was not even a concept in 1952, when Mahalingam participated in free India's first assembly election in Madras State.
"The polling booth had ballot boxes of different colours and embossed with party symbols, one of for each party," recalls Mahalingam, now 86."There was a box each for the Congress, communists, socialists and independents. Voters would drop their ballot into the box to choose their preferred candidate. I went straight to the one with the 'two bulls with yoke on', which was the symbol of the Congress party."
Today, if someone's voting preference is seen even accidentally, it creates trouble. But, Mahalingam says, trouble was foreign to elections.
"Not many politicians indulged in false propaganda for votes in those days," says the octogenarian who runs a library named after Mahatma Gandhi.
A follower of the father of nation, Mahalingam remained a Congress worker till the death of former chief minister Kamaraj in 1975.
"I have quit politics, but I have voted in every election till now," he says.
It is not just the ballot boxes that have given way to electronic voting machines, electioneering itself has changed over the years. Old-timers say simplicity was the hallmark of erstwhile politicians, at least during campaign. Then came the pompous road shows accompanied by police.
Muthusamy, 83, a resident of Mylapore till a few years ago, says policemen were a rare specimen in the 1957 election. "There were a few policeman on the streets when I went to the polling booth in a school on Adam Street. A teacher from the school assisted election officers ," he says.
Election Commission must have forced today's leaders to cut down on their road shows. Campaigners of yore had the bicycle as their primary mode of transportation. "Candidates would mostly walk. Anyone could go up to the top leader, shake his hand or hug," says Muthusamy.
Dr S Jayachandran, 67, a senior physician in north Chennai, recollects the rallies of former chief ministers Annadurai and Kamaraj. "While some leaders were orators themselves, political parties would engage orators unaffiliated to any party," he said.
Sharif, a retired railway employee in Triplicane, remembers folding the ballot had a pattern: the seal on the candidate's symbol should not smudge another column. Sharif, a septuagenarian, will be using an electronic voting machine for the first time on Monday.