Eighteen year old Rajni an inmate of Balika Niketan (shelter home for children) looked very happy and enthusiastic after casting her vote for the first time . She exercised her franchise at the model polling booth at premises of Nari Niketan located at Kedarpuram here on Wednesday.
The shelter home which was in news all for wrong reasons in the past like death of mentally challenged inmates and sexual abuse was made a model booth on the insistence of the election commission. The booth was exclusively set up for the inmates of Nari Niketan. Special arrangements like decoration and installation of web casting facility were made by the administration in the booth. The commission had deployed an all women staff for the voters all of whom were inmates of Nari Niketan and Balika Niketan.
Rajni told The Pioneer that she enjoyed voting as it gave her a sense of empowerment. She is staying in the shelter home from last eight years. Babli (18) and Anjali (20) also looked elated while coming out of the booth. Similar sentiments were echoed by Manju and Krishna, the other inmates of Nari Niketan after participating in the festival of democracy. “I never even thought that I would be able to vote. This time a polling booth was set up inside Nari Niketan for us to vote. I also asked other inmates to caste their vote but some of them refused for the reasons best known to them,’’ said inmate Manju a native of New Tehri.
The Presiding Officer of the booth, Sushma Goyal said that nineteen inmates out of total 68 registered exercised their franchise. She said that all the members of the polling party were very happy to work in the model polling booth. Goyal informed that things like key chains, chocolates and toffees were also distributed to the inmates after they voted. The members of the polling party explained the process of voting to the inmates. The district probationary officer Meena Bisht said that booth was set up inside the Nari Niketan for the first time. She informed that three inmates of Balika Niketan and sixteen inmates of Nari Niketan exercised their franchise.