Shaheen Bagh protesters flaunt their inked finger as proud Indians

New Delhi: When polling started on Saturday all eyes were at Shaheen Bagh, the protest site which is in news for the longest sit-in anti-CAA protest by women. Political parties like BJP tried to make it an election issue with many of its leaders weaving words around Shaheen Bagh to build-up their campaign.

By evening the women of Shaheen Bagh were proudly seen flaunting their voting fingers to the media gathered at the protest site, with the 'dadis' of Shaheen Bagh, leading from the front and sitting at the front row.

Long queues were seen at Shaheen Public School one of the major polling booths of the total 41 booths at Shaheen Bagh and nearest to the protest site where men and women were seen standing in lines to vote as soon as the school opened for voting.

Bilqis who is 82 years old and is famous as one of the dadis of Shaheen bagh told Millennium Post that she went to vote with her family.

"I did go to vote, I was accompanied by my family. The people there at the booth were receptive. I had no issues in casting my vote," she said as she flaunted her voting finger.

"We have come to vote for development. In fact, it's the time to payback for the development we have seen. We won't tell you the party but yes, our vote goes to the party which deserves to be voted," said Farzana, a voter from the area.

The women of Shaheen Bagh had already made it clear that they would go to vote in shifts, not leaving the protest site vacant. Millennium Post already reported the story on February 6.

"We moved to poll booths in shifts so that the number of women sitting at the protest doesn't go down substantially. We moved in shifts to vote and came back to the protest site as soon as possible," said Shaista Naaz, a woman protester.

Many voters were outside Delhi but travelled to the city to vote. Umar who is a manager in a private company in Mumbai flew to Delhi to exercise his right to vote in Delhi.

"Yes, it was important for me to cast my vote. It is easy to curse the government but hard to come out to vote. I flew. I will go back contended," Umar said.

Women were also seen carrying their babies to polling booths.

"I have carried my 2-year-old baby to the polling booth if we can carry them to protest site we can carry them to the voting booths as well," said a woman who came to vote at the Shaheen public school.

Heavy security arrangements were made at Shaheen Bagh with senior police officers including the area DCP Rajendra Prasad Meena and additional DCP Kumar Gyanesh doing rounds at Shaheen Bagh. The voting ended peacefully.

AAP's Amanatullah Khan is the sitting MLA in this area and also the 2020 candidate of the party, he is up against Congress's Parvez Hashmi and BJP's Brahm Singh Bidhuri.