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New Delhi, May 3 (PTI) Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar has spoken to a 103-year-old voter in Karnataka’s Belagavi district over the phone to thank him for exercising his franchise using the home voting facility, officials said.

Mahadeva Mahalinga Mali recently cast his vote from home at Chikkodi in Belagavi for the Karnataka assembly elections.

Voting for the assembly polls in Karnataka will be held on May 10. Home voting takes place before the actual election date in full secrecy in presence of poll officials and representatives of political parties.

Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Election Commission has allowed home voting facility to voters who are 80 years and above, and those suffering from the infection or are under quarantine.

CEC Kumar telephoned the centenarian voter on Tuesday to thank him for voting in the state polls.

According to the officials, Kumar told Mahadeva that elderly voters like him are an inspiration for young and urban voters to participate in the festival of democracy.

Mahadeva, they said, thanked the CEC for the facility of voting from home.

He also recalled that in the previous elections, he had gone to the polling station in a wheelchair to cast his vote.

Earlier, during the Himachal Pradesh elections last year, the CEC had visited Kalpa and Kinnaur to pay his condolences to the family of Shyam Saran Negi, independent India’s first voter who had participated in each and every election and also voted in the state polls using the home voting facility before his demise.