Madurai: 102 little hearts ‘post’ ambitious campaign for clean voting

Madurai: True, they form a inuscule portion of the state's population readying itself for the mega poll battle a month from now. But these 102 little hearts are literally bleeding for clean and fair elections and have embarked on an 'ambitious' campaign to carry forward their message — 'Your vote is priceless, make sure you cast it and you don't fix a price on it'.

The 102 students of classes one to eight of the 'Chairman Manickavasagam aided middle school' at Devakottai have been long known for their unique and inspiring programmes and campaigns for gaining knowledge way beyond their curriculum and from sources/experts of faraway places. This is poll-time, so these kids decided on a novel method to ensure that their elders exercise their franchise and also do so without yielding to any temptations of cash or kind.

"The students used their own meagre savings on pocket money to buy post cards and wrote their request messages asking their parents to make sure they use their priceless vote in proper manner. We got Tahsildar Easwari to launch the students' campaign and post their cards carrying the important message to their parents", said the school's enterprising and socially-conscious Headmaster L Chokkalingam.

Tahsildar Easwari paid rich compliments to the kids for their commitment, in their own small way, towards strengthening India's democracy, and told them with a broad encouraging smile that they "must not sleep until their elders at home go the polling booths and cast their votes", without yielding to the usual temptations.

"And this morning, when the kids gathered at the school courtyard to take stock of their post-card campaign, Gayatri of class eight recalled her experience with a 72-year-old man from the Natarajapuram area, who told her he had not cast his vote in the last four or five elections but he would certainly exercise franchise this time as he is deeply touched by her post-card", said Chokkalingam.

He said the kids had not only sent post-cards to their own parents but also bought additional cards for sending to their friends' parents. "It felt so great listening to these little kids narrating, with pride, how their post-cards touched the elder's hearts and elicited promises they would certainly vote and they would not take money for it", said the happy HM.