Paterfamilias of India’s electorate passes away, but after casting his last vote

He never failed to cast his vote, not even his last.

Shyam Saran Negi, the paterfamilias of the electorate of the nation, is no more. He passed away at the age of 105 on Saturday – three days after casting his vote for the assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh, participating in the festival of democracy, just as he unfailingly did every time over the past seven decades since 1951.

Negi, known in his village as ‘Master Shyam’, was acknowledged by the Election Commission (EC) in 2010 as the “first voter of independent India”.

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“Not just the first voter of independent India, but a man with exceptional faith in democracy, who inspired millions to vote,” the EC stated as it mourned the demise of the icon. The district administration arranged for the grand old man’s cremation with state honours, with Chief Election Commissioner, Rajiv Kumar, visiting his village and conveying condolence to the bereaved family and paying homage to the departed soul.

“We salute him for his contribution to democracy of India,” Maneesh Garg, the Chief Electoral Officer of Himachal Pradesh, tweeted.

Himachal Pradesh will go to polls on November 12 to elect the new legislative assembly of the state.

Negi has not been in the pink of health over the past few weeks. He was still very keen to walk up to the polling station and cast his vote, like he did on October 25, 1951 for the first parliamentary polls of independent India and then for every election thereafter.

But the others in his family were not sure if he would be able to make it to the polling station. The poll officials suggested that he could cast his vote through postal ballot – a facility the Election Commission started offering to senior citizens aged 80 or above a few years back.

The centenarian agreed, albeit reluctantly, after much persuasion.

So, the EC last Wednesday sent a team of officials to his home in Kalpa – a village in Kinnaur in the north-east corner of Himachal Pradesh – to collect his vote on a postal ballot.

The district’s Deputy Commissioner, Abid Hussain Sadiq, himself, led the team of poll officials. They were also accompanied by a local band that played traditional music, as the 105-year-old trudged on a red carpet up to a box and dropped his postal ballot in it, with the help from two members of his family.

Negi also had a brief chat with Sadiq and others. He even posed for photographers.

Though he was not keeping well, his zeal did not let anyone think even for a while that it could be his last vote.

Yet the end came on early Wednesday. Kinnaur’s most famous voter breathed his last, at his home in the lap of Himalayas – after serving for more than 70 years as a sentinel of India’s democracy close to its disputed boundary with increasingly belligerent China.

Negi had served first as a forest official and then as a teacher in Himachal Pradesh. He had turned up at his village polling station sharp at 7:00 a.m. on October 25, 1951 and cast his vote, participating in the country’s first parliamentary polls after Independence. He had then rushed to another polling station where he had been assigned to help conduct voting. The EC had in 2010 recognized him as the first voter of independent India. Navin Chawla, the then Chief Election Commissioner, had visited his village and felicitated him in 2012.

He has since been an icon for the EC's campaign to inspire citizens to exercise their voting rights.