Hearing, speech and visually impaired woman casts vote at polling booth in Indore

Indore: Indore resident Gurdeep Kaur Vasu is speech, hearing and visually-impaired, but happiness was clearly visible on her face after she cast her vote at a polling booth here on Monday.

The 32-year-old woman overcame physical challenges to reach the polling booth for the second time in her life.

Her mother Manjeet Kaur Vasu, who accompanied her for help, told PTI that her daughter cast her vote at a polling booth in Vaishali Nagar in Madhya Pradesh's Indore city.

"Gurdeep was very excited since Monday morning that she had to go to cast her vote. The happiness doubled after she exercised her franchise," she said.

The woman said her daughter voted for the first time in the November 2023 state assembly elections. Her name was included in the voters' list last year, she said.

In May last year, Gurdeep passed the Class 10 exams conducted by the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education as a private candidate.

According to officials, it was the first case in the history of the MP Board of Secondary Education when a candidate who is unable to speak, hear and see passed the high school certificate examination.

She was provided with a sign language expert as per the Board of Secondary Education rules keeping in view of her special condition.

Voting was underway since 7 am in MP's eight Lok Sabha seats, including Indore which has 25.27 lakh voters, for the fourth and last phase of general elections in the state.