Young Voters Bring Early Buzz To Poll Booths
By 1 pm, polling staff at two Erragadda booths said around 80 first-time voters had already cast their ballots: Reports
HYDERABAD: At an otherwise quiet polling centre in Vengal Rao Nagar, the morning belonged to first-time voters who arrived early, some carrying stories of missing their chance in the past and some simply excited to be part of the process at last.
Riya, 20, walked out of the booth holding her inked finger carefully. She finished her degree in Puducherry in June and is interning in Hyderabad now. “I couldn’t vote in 2023 because my exams were on and I couldn’t travel. I promised myself I wouldn’t miss it again,” she said, calling today’s vote “a small personal victory.”
A few streets away, 19-year-old Abhinav said he missed voting in 2023 by “just a month”. He turned 18 shortly after the rolls were finalised that year. “It bothered me more than I expected. This time I came early so nothing would go wrong,” he said.
Cousins Aditi and Karthik voted at two different booths in Kalyan Nagar but met outside to take an enthusiastic selfie. “It’s nice to be voting when nobody else from our class is, because only we have a by-poll,” Aditi said, while Karthik said that though he must’ve studied about by-polls in high school civics, he understood what it is, only now.
By 1 pm, polling staff at two Erragadda booths said around 80 first-time voters had already cast their ballots. A polling officer, who has worked multiple elections, said the new voters often set the pace. “They are usually the earliest. Many walk in with their cards already out, asking if they are in the right queue. You can see they’ve been waiting for this,” she said.
The rest of the locality remained slow through the afternoon, but the steady trickle of young voters offered one bright patch in an otherwise subdued polling day.
