At 103, India’s first elector Shyam Saran Negi all set to vote for 17th time :

1. India’s first voter Shyam Saran Negi (103), along with 998 other centurions, will cast his vote on May 19, while 108-year-old Shari Devi will exercise her franchise at the farthest polling station in remote Shakti village of the Banjar area in Kullu district.

2. Shyam Saran Negi has voted in all 16 Lok Sabha elections since 1951 and will be doing so for the 17th time at his native village Kalpa. He has also voted in 13 Assembly and two territorial council elections.

3. He was the first voter by accident as the first elections in the tribal area was held in 1951 ahead of the elections in other parts of the country in 1952 and being a member of the polling party, he was first to cast the vote.

4. Shyam Saran Negi will be escorted by an officer from his residence and received by Kinnaur Deputy Commissioner Gopal Chand. He will be accorded a red carpet welcome at the Kalpa polling booth with a band and traditional folk music playing in the background. “The country’s first voter will be honoured with a Himachali cap and a shawl,” the Deputy Commissioner said.

5. Women outnumber men as far as centurion voters are concerned. Out of 999 voters (above the age of 100), 622 are women and 377 men. The number of centurion voters is six in Lahaul-Spiti district and 293 in Kangra.

6. The Election Commission has also directed its officials to make special arrangements for the elderly and differently abled voters.

About Shyam Saran Negi :

Shyam Saran Negi, born on 1 July 1917 in Kalpa, Himachal Pradesh, is a retired schoolteacher who cast the first vote in the 1951 general election in India  the nation's first election since the end of the British Raj in 1947. Although most of the polling for that first election took place in February 1952, Himachal Pradesh went to the polls five months early because the weather there tends to be inclement in February and March and heavy snowfall during that period would have make it impossible for citizens to reach the polling stations. Negi cast the first vote on October 25, 1951. He has voted in every general election since 1951, and is believed to be India's oldest voter as well its first. 

Honour :

• In 2010, the then Chief Election Commissioner of India, Navin Chawla, visited Negi's village to honour him as part of the Election Commission's diamond jubilee celebrations.
• In 2014, Google India produced a public service announcement in which Negi told of his participation in independent India's first election, and reminded viewers of the importance of voting.