102-yr old Shyam Saran Negi, a government school teacher, who retired in 1975, was the first to vote in independent India’s first Lok Sabha elections in October 1951 in Chini constituency, later renamed Kinnaur.
Negi has never missed casting his vote over the decades. (A screen grab of the Google India video featuring Shyam Saran Negi.)
Independent India’s first voter, Shyam Saran Negi from Kalpa, Himachal Pradesh, is all set to vote again in Lok Sabha Elections on Sunday in the seventh and the final phase of voting for the 17th Lok Sabha.
DC Kinnaur says, “We will bring him to the polling booth with full respect and help him exercise his franchise.”
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Shyam Saran Negi cast the first vote in the 1951 general elections. A government school teacher who retired in 1975, 102-yr old Negi was the first to vote in independent India’s first Lok Sabha elections in October 1951 in Chini constituency, later renamed Kinnaur.
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At that time, people in parts of Himachal Pradesh were allowed to vote five months prior to the first general elections slated for February 1952 in view of the possibility of snowfall in tough areas.
Negi has never missed casting his vote over the decades and he was the brand ambassador of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
The last time he cast his vote was on May 7, 2014, for the 16th Lok Sabha.
Earlier, Bachan Singh of Delhi cast his vote at the Sant Garh polling booth in West Delhi’s Tilak Nagar on May 12 in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
At 111 years, Bachan Singh is Delhi’s oldest voter, according to the records of the Delhi Election Commission.
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