Close to a hundred Russian citizens living in Chennai, including some from Bengaluru, cast their vote in the eighth Presidential elections of the Russian Federation at the Russian Cultural Centre in Alwarpet here on Sunday. The voting process began on Friday in Russia and the results will be announced on Monday.
Oleg N. Avdeev, the Consul General of the Russian Federation in Chennai, was one of the voters along with his staff and said that polls were an important event that would determine the future of every country.
“In Chennai, we have polls only on Sunday for the people who mostly live here, and we have people coming from Bengaluru. We expect around 100 people from Russian staff and other Russian people working in India and other Russian nationals (mostly spouses of Indian nationals) who stay here permanently [to cast their votes]. Earlier, we had polls in other parts of consular area in other parts of South India and Puducherry (in Auroville) approximately two weeks ago,” he said.
The candidates are Nikolai Kharitonov of the Russian Communist Party; Leonid Slutsky; of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia; and Vladislav Davankov; of the New People Party and the incumbent Vladimir Putin, who is contesting as the Independent.
“We also have a big Russian community in Varkala, Kochi and Trivandrum and of course, we have about 140 people, mostly experts and their spouses working in Kudankulam nuclear plant near Chennai. The idea is to enable as many Russian people as possible take part in election and exercise their constitutional right to vote,” he said.
Mr. Avdeev said while Goa has traditionally been the go-to place for the Russian community, several sites in the southern States such as Gokarna and Kerala could overtake Goa.
Asked if this was an effort to enable Russians to vote in elections, made in the wake of criticism that the results of the elections was a foregone conclusion with incumbent President Vladimir Putin expected to take charge as President again, Mr. Avdeev said: “There has been a lot of unfair criticism. Russia may be one of the most democratic nations in the world when compared with western countries that claim to be best democracies in the world. In comparison, Russians have more freedoms and rights.”
Mr. Avdeev, who has been in India since the 1980, said Indian democratic process was ‘very robust’ and the Indian election was enormous in the sense that it is held for 1.4 billion citizens of India.
