Pooch pawlitics: Election fever grips Delhi as residents vote for their favourite ‘fat dog’

The electoral process is simple: Pick a candidate, go to the polling booth, and cast your vote

The electoral process is simple: Pick a candidate, go to the polling booth, and cast your vote. But what if the candidates are ‘fat’ dogs; the polling booth is a burger joint; and you write out your choice on a sticky note? This is what was going on in the Capital on Tuesday.

One of the places where in-person voting took place on Wednesday was at a burger joint in Basant Lok market, Vasant Vihar. (HT Photo)

The election for the best ‘fat’ dogs has taken the city by storm over the past week. Residents lobbied for their favourites with posters, social media campaigns, and arguments with friends in person. There are only two candidates left in the finale. Gola, also known as Kebab or Rajpal Singh, who passed away mid-contest, used to lie around in SDA market appears to be a crowd favourite. The other leading contender is Googoo who resides in Saket.

The voting campaign is mainly online on the Instagram account called ‘Fat Dogs of Delhi’ that first started this craze. But at four spots — Vasant Vihar, Punjabi Bagh, Kamla Nagar and Gurugram — in the National Capital Region, people were able to go in and vote in person.

The voting booths opened at 3pm and closed at 7pm.

At each location, there were a few volunteers walking around the areas, asking people if they wanted to vote and giving them directions to the nearest polling place.

In Vasant Vihar, the polling booth — basically, a box with an open slit — was at the payment counter at Aku’s (one of the collaborators). People were being given sticky notes and pens to write down the names of their favourite ‘fat dog’ to slide into the box.

In an exit poll conducted around 6.30pm, HT spoke to 49 voters and found that the late Gola received more than two-thirds of the vote.

Only 11 backed Googoo, much to the vexation of Saket residents, who alleged a conspiracy and argued that posthumous candidates should have been dropped from the ballot.

It was just as much of a landslide online. At 7pm, Gola led polling with 71% votes against Googoo’s 29%.

But supporters of the 63 other contenders who had been voted out were just not having it.

A group of voters staged a protest at the Kamla Nagar booth – They wanted Chonkers to be in the finals and were not happy with the finalists.

At the Vasant Vihar joint, two 18-year-olds Bhavya and Garv said, “Googoo looks like a gangster and he is cute but he is not fat enough. We support Gola but even Tara Singh or Gajinder could have been in the finals.”

Abhinn, a Delhi University student who was the polling booth officer at the Vasant Vihar said the support was unexpected.

“We have seen huge crowds since morning. We even saw an elderly couple who told us they followed the page and wanted to caste their votes. As of now, more than 90 people have voted. It looks like a landslide victory for Gola. I was the one who submitted his photos for the page,” he said.

The admin of the Instagram page, a DU journalism student, said the results will be shared online on Thursday, or latest by Friday, if she is too overwhelmed by the response. What do the dogs get? They will all receive gifts, including treats.

“We have also received donations and will support the NGOs who are helping these street dogs. The idea is to help more such NGOs get funds,” she said.