Centenarian full of zest to vote

Notwithstanding the Election Commission's campaign to enthuse young voters to exercise their franchise, a veteran freedom fighter's zeal to cast his vote has not diminished despite inching closer to his 100th birthday.
A public figure commanding respect across party lines, K Ayyappan Pillai, who will celebrate his 100th birthday next month, is ready to go for voting tomorrow.
A freedom fighter and former vice president of the state BJP, Pillai said he has never failed to exercise his democratic right in any of the elections after Independence.
He said he is eagerly waiting to cast his vote in the 16th Lok Sabha polls too.

"Those who ever experienced any form of imprisonment for a political cause or denial of rights in life will never let miss his right to vote," Pillai told PTI.
"My generation experienced the perils of both 'diwan' rule as well as colonial domination. So for us, democracy and the right to vote came as an invaluable gift," he said.

A supporter of Travancore State Congress, formed under local chapter of Indian National Congress in 1938, State Congress leaders assigned him to present people's grievances before the royal administration on many occasions.
He had acted as mediator between the royal administration and Congress when many of its leaders were jailed immediately after Independence, when the then diwan C P Ramaswamy Iyer propped up the idea of 'independent Travancore'.

Travancore had its first election, based on adult franchise in 1948 when the then king Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma gave his consent to form 'responsible government' in the princely state.
Active in the socio-cultural sphere of Kerala capital city even now, Pillai said his first vote was on Feb 1948 to select representatives to the Constituent Assembly of the 'responsible government'. This Assembly was later given powers of a Legislative Assembly based on the request of leaders.
"I cast my first vote at a polling station, set at a military camp of the Travancore State Force at Pangode here. I also worked as a polling agent then," he said.

He has since then voted in all the polls held.
They include the first election after the formation of Travancore-Cochin state, the first Parliament election in the country in 1951-52, the first state election in the United Kerala in 1957, after amalgamation of Travancore-Cochin with Malabar, which was part of composite Madras state.
Pillai later moved to Praja Socialist Party and then to the BJP.
The socio-cultural fraternity here is planning to celebrate his 100th birthday as a grand function.