‘Oldies, but got up at 6 to vote’: Narayana Murthy, wife Sudha’s message to youth on Karnataka polls

Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murty urged youngsters to exercise their power to vote in the Karnataka assembly elections.

Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy and his educator wife Sudha Murty were among the early voters in the Karnataka assembly elections on Wednesday. Speaking to the media while casting their ballots at Jayanagar in Bengaluru, the couple urged youngsters to exercise the right to vote.

Appealing to voters to learn from them, Sudha said, “Please look at us. We are oldies but we get up at 6 o’clock, come here and vote…Voting is a sacred part of democracy.”

Voting gives people the ‘power to talk’, the 72-year-old Padma Bhushan winner added, exhorting the young voters.

Echoing his wife’s statement, the IT veteran shared that despite arriving in India from abroad on Wednesday morning, he made it to the polling booth on time to cast his vote. Holding elders responsible for inspiring the youth to vote, he said, “It is the responsibility of the elders to sit down with youngsters and advise them why voting is important. That’s what my parents did.” The 76-year-old reminisced about how his parents ensured that he exercised the franchise.

He also asserted that people who don’t vote do not have the right to ‘criticise’.

“First, we vote and then we can say this is good, this is not good but if we don’t do that then we don’t have the right to criticise,” he said.

The couple also revealed their mutual expectations from the elections for better education opportunities for the posterity. Narayana Murthy expressed his wish to see Bengaluru developed as one of the best cities in the world for his grandchildren to pursue their careers and ‘add value to society’.

Co-founder of Infosys, Nandan Nilekani also cast his vote at a polling booth in Bengaluru’s Koramangala. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, also came to vote at the Jayanagar centre.

Voting across Karnataka began at 7 am and will go on till 6 pm. The results will be declared on May 13. As many as 5.3 crore general voters, of which 11,71,558 are young and 12,15,920 are 80 senior citizens, are set to cast their votes in 58,545 polling stations in 37,777 locations.