100 Years For India's First Voter - Independent India's First and the Oldest Voter - He has Never Missed The Election - భారతదేశ తొలి ఓటరుకు వందేళ్లు

Independent India's first and the oldest voter, Shyam Saran Negi has turned 100. Did you know that he has never missed an election?

A remote village in Himachal Pradesh’s Kinnaur district is gearing up to honour Shyam Saran Negi, independent India’s first voter, when he turns 100 on Saturday.

Negi was the first to cast his vote in the country’s first-ever general elections held in October 1951. In 2010, India’s then election commissioner Navin Chawla travelled to Kinnaur to felicitate Negi and in 2014, he was appointed the brand ambassador by the Himachal Pradesh state election commission to sensitise voters ahead of Lok Sabha polls.

“I still remember the day when I cast my vote for the first time. The country then and now – many things have changed," said -Negi 

He has voted 16 times in Lok Sabha polls and 12 times in state assembly elections, an election commission report stated.

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The region of Chini which is within present day Kinnaur district held elections before other parts of the state in 1951, anticipating heavy snowfall in higher altitude areas.

Decades later, Negi, who was born on July 1, 1917, remains a strong advocate of the electoral process, saying everyone must vote to write their own destiny.

The birthday celebrations for Negi have already begun at his home. On Friday, traditional prayers were held at his house in Kalpa. His 96-year-old wife Hiramani participated in the prayers.

“I have called nine lamas (Buddhist monks) from the local monastery to pray for my father’s good health as he doesn’t keep too well now ... He can hardly walk as he has problems in his leg joints,” Chander Prakash, the youngest of Negi’s nine children, told HT. The celebrations will peak on Saturday, relatives said.

the Village is now making preparations to celebrate Negi’s 100th birth anniversary. In 2010 he was named as the brand ambassador for the poll campaign in the tribal region by the State Election Commission. “I still remember the day when I cast my vote for the first time. The country then and now – many things have changed,"

Born on July 1, 1917, Negi a retired school teacher cast his first vote at the polling both in HP when people of some parts of Himachal Pradesh were allowed to vote five months ahead of the General Elections that were scheduled to be held in February 1952. In 2014 General Elections, Shyam Negi who has never missed an opportunity to vote cast his vote along with wife even when he was 97-years-old. The polling booth was set up in the same school he had retired from. In his lifetime, Negi has voted for 17 times till now.

Thanking the government for giving him the recognition of the first Indian voter, Negi hs urged people across the country to go out and vote.