April 30th was the third phase of the on going Lok Sabha elections in India and the second and the final phase of the polling in Karnataka. I had to take a leave off from my office (polling was complete in Bangalore the previous Thursday (23rd) itself) and goto Mangalore to cast my vote.
This was the third or the fourth time I cast my vote, the last being a year and a half back for the by-elections. Due to the delimitation process my area moved from Ullal constituency to Dakshina Kannada. There were 11 contestants who were in the running out of which seven were independents.
I went around 9:30 am and was able to cast my vote in around 10 minutes. I hear that at a few places people had to wait for a long time (about a hour or so) before they would cast their votes. Overall the percentage of people who voted in Dakshina Kannada (DK) was the highest in Karnataka – 74%.
One of the reasons I could see for this was the May 1st holiday. Lots of Mangalorean people have now moved out of Mangalore and are working in other cities like Bangalore. Taking a leave on 30th for voting would have given them an extended four day weekend and it looks like most of them utilised it cleverly.
A couple of weeks still to go before the counting starts lets hope the best candidate wins and we have a stable government at the centre.
