India’s first voter dies days after casting his last ballot

Shyam Saran Negi, independent India's first and oldest voter who over the last decade became an icon for participatory democracy, died at the age of 105 on Saturday, officials said.

Negi, who voted for the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections on Wednesday, died of natural causes in the small hamlet of Kalpa in Kinnaur, roughly 265kms from the state capital Shimla.

"Negi ji was an icon for voters not only in the state but across the country. Unfortunately, he was not keeping well for the past few days due to age-related ailments," Kinnaur deputy commissioner Abid Hussain Sadiq said, announcing his death.

Negi, popular as masterjee in the village of fewer than 2,000 people, was a schoolteacher and had been an ambassador for the Election Commission.

Till this year, Negi would visit the local polling centre but chose to vote from home this time due to ill-health, making use of the postal ballot option.

Since last month, the Election Commission has allowed all citizens above the age of 80, people with disabilities greater than 40% and absentee voters in the state to vote using postal ballots.

It was Negi's first time using that option, but possibly a record 34th time that he exercised his right to elect a representative.

The story of how Negi came to be India's first voter begins in the oddity of election timing in Kalpa village. In 1951, when the village was known as Chini, elections were held two months earlier than in the rest of the country since Kinnaur receives heavy snowfall, making the transporting of ballot boxes difficult.

Negi, born on July 1, 1917, at the time was a schoolteacher assigned on polling duty.

He requested the polling party at his village to allow him to cast his vote quickly so that he could head to the station and take up his duties. The officer concerned accepted his request and he thus became the country's first voter, a distinction that was outmatched only by his drive to vote in every subsequent polls – whether for panchayat or Lok Sabha.

A quiet duty

Negi was unaware of his status as the country's first voter until the Election Commission tracked him down in July 2007. Indian Administrative Service officer Manisha Nanda, now additional chief secretary (public works department) in Himachal Pradesh, first learnt about him from the photo electoral roll.

M Sudha Devi, a 2003-batch IAS officer then posted as Kinnaur deputy commissioner, met Negi at Kalpa and subsequently verified from records that he was indeed the first to vote.

In 2012, then chief election commissioner Naveen Chawla reached Negi's home in Kalpa to felicitate him.

During the 2014 elections, Google and the EC made a video featuring Negi for its Pledge to Vote campaign.

The video got more views than any another video launched under the same campaign, featuring celebrities such as Amitabh Bachchan, Dia Mirza, Arjun Rampal and cricketer Virender Sehwag.

On Saturday, Sadiq, who is the returning officer this time, said Negi's vote will be counted.