Elderly among first to vote in East Delhi

New Delhi: Senior citizens and political party activists were among the first to cast their votes Wednesday at some of the polling booths in East Delhi. The polling picked up by 8.45 am. The political fate of 810 candidates contesting for the 70-member Delhi assembly will be decided by 1.2 million voters. Voters complained that the election commission should have advertised the rule that voters were not allowed to take their cell phones inside the polling booths. Many voters were asked to keep their mobile phones inside their cars or scooters before entering the polling booth. "It is very inconvenient. They should have advertised it," Shashi Gupta, a chartered accountant who is a voter in East Delhi`s Defence Enclave, said. Monika, a voter from the Defence Enclave area in East Delhi, said her son and his friends want to vote for Aam Aadmi Party. "They want to bring a change and so they want to support the Aam Admi Party..." But, she however said, her support was to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Some complained that the electronic voting machines did not work properly. BJP candidate for Vishwas Nagar constituency Om Prakash Chaudhury had to wait for almost 30 minutes to cast his vote, said party worker Naresh Chaudhury. Another voter Akhil Bhargava said he too had to wait for 15-20 minutes for the voting machine to start and cast his vote. "A senior officer was called in and he had to explain how the machine works," he said.