600 youths take oath on National Voters' Day

Integrity and democracy can bring in sense of pride about nation

Stating that greater participation was required for stronger democracy, University of Mysore Vice Chancellor Prof V G Talwar said it is not enough if people retain integrity, they should also imbue others with similar values since that would ensure a larger community staying clean.

“This would certainly help change the image of India at all levels,” he said exuding confidence that corruption-free India would be an answer for so many problems we are facing today.

He was speaking at National Voters’ Day organised by district administration and Election Commision of India at Rani Bahadur auditorium here on Wednesday.

“On my visit to China, I observed that every person in the country carried so much pride about their nation. We need such pride to find place in our hearts too, about our country. And for this to happen, we need to start questioning a lot of things,” he said.

"Ours is country with strong democracy and secular values. Every voter should exercise his or her franchise in order to bring a stable and strong government, without shirking from our duty of voting. The educated section which is the creme of the society should do this and set an example,” he added.

“It is easy to blame someone, mostly a leader for the hardship or problems we are forced to go through. But, we are equally at fault for having relaxed or watched a movie on the day we were supposed to do the most responsible thing -- vote. Hence, we as a society don’t have the right to complain,” he pointed out.

Another speaker on the occasion, Police Commissioner Sunil Agarwal said that 50 lakh new voters were being added every year in the country. However, majority of them do not vote for not possessing the valid id card, or for the reason that they lack the will to go to voting booth on the day.

Earlier, Deputy Commissioner P S Vastrad administered "Voters' pledge" to about 600 youngsters in the auditorium. In his address, Vastrad said young and educated people should vote since it is their right and duty to do so. Teams which had won in several games organised during the Inter-college tournaments conducted as part of National Voter's Day. Prizes were also given away to selected good polling booth offices and to the first two new voters of each Assembly constituency. Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Naganayak was present.