Hamara vote

May 7th. We made our way to our polling booth, which by the way happens to be the booth for everyone from our colony. As a backgrounder, let me add that we stay in a neighbourhood of this country's Babus who don't have an iota of social conscience, as has been evident on several occassions in the past.
So anyway there we were at our polling booth, and RG very coolly says to the officer, Sir I would like to cast a 49-O vote. And then began the expected uproar - There's no such provision, Dont tell us the rules, Why don't you just vote like everyone else, Why are you holding up everyone else's tun to vote etc etc.
Now yesterday I had happened to go through the Election Rules, 1961 (available online), and went through the entire Section-49. 49-O as is being promoted through various forms of media essentially allows you to case a vote for 'None of the Above', and all that has to be done is to record it in Form 17A. Form 17A is the very same register where every elector's information is recorded before they case the vote. And 49-O is not the same as a tendered vote, that is 49-P.
But when I tried to explain all this to the presiding officer there, he would just not agree/listen. After making RG wait for about 15 mins, he took out the Rules manual, and came up with the same solution, and then went on to record his vote as a 49-O in the register/form 17A.

Now, a couple of things -
1. Polling officers have no idea of rules, they dont bother to read up Even When someone comes and tells them to look it up. They would rather make a phonecall to some senior person, who may/may not answer, and even then may/may not turn up to resolve the issue.
2. The educated class of this country has no BRAINS. Everyone at our polling booth was from our locality, many infact who we know. And not one of them had any idea about the implementation of 49-O. And not one of them was bothered to let it work out. All they were bothered about was being allowed to vote so that their time is not 'wasted'. NOT ONE of those present could have been bothered about anything else but themselves. TYPICAL OF THEIR BREED.
3. HOW can people be allowed to bring in Cameras and take photos of themselves casting their vote??!?
4. But, as we were exiting from the booth we did hear someone say "..I had always thought this colony was one of aam-aadmi, but...." . I'm guessing RG did impress Someone :)
The rest of NK can go F*** itself.