Former President A P J Abdul Kalam on Wednesday exhorted the people of the country to exercise their franchise in the coming Lok Sabha elections to elect the "righteous" candidate. He said the polls are a great opportunity provided to the people of country to elect members who will be "guiding the destiny of the nation for the next five years." "The right to vote is a sacred right and an onerous responsibility that we owe to the motherland," Kalam said. "The dawn of beautiful India is in our mind and then in our deeds. The deed for the day of the elections for us is to cast our vote and be a proud contributor to the success of the spirit of democracy of the largest and dynamic democracy of all our democracies," he said in a message to the Celebrate Democracy - Vote India campaign. Kalam also set a five point mission for the elected candidates. He asked them to assess the present per capita income of the constituency with an aim to increase the per capita income three times in five years. "The present literacy percentage of the constituency has to be increased at least by 20 per cent in five years," he said. The former President asked the elected members to take the statistics of number of water bodies in the constituency besides looking into the infant mortality rate. "Infant mortality rate of the constituency has to come down to less than 10 per thousand in 5 years," he said.
