President Pranab Mukherjee has decided not to cast his vote in this election to maintain “neutrality”.
He had earlier said he would make use of postal ballot to cast his vote in the last phase of the Lok Sabha polls. Accordingly, the postal ballot was made ready for Pranab, who have so far never failed to exercise his franchise.
However, the President’s Office on Friday said he has decided against it and wanted to stick to the tradition of Presidents’ refraining from exercising their voting rights, primarily to maintain neutrality.
Pranab is enrolled as a voter in South Kolkata, which goes to the polls on May 12.
“The President has decided not to cast his vote, as he wants to follow the tradition of Presidents’ maintaining their neutrality by not voting,” said his press secretary Venu Rajamony.
The first President to break the unwritten tradition was K R Narayanan, who chose to stand in a queue to cast his vote as an ordinary citizen in a polling booth here.
Thereafter, A P J Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil treaded the same path as Narayanan. Now, Pranab is returning to the earlier tradition.