JOIN USThe Election Commission (EC), encouraged by the increased voting percentage in the May 5 Assembly elections, has decided to continue its awareness drive keeping the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in mind.
The campaign ‘come and vote’ by cinestars and the nation’s top sportspersons proved a big hit among the people during the elections.
“The Election Commission of India has instructed us to take up awareness programmes on voting and we will continue them till we feel it is necessary,” Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha told Deccan Herald on Tuesday.
On the good turnout of voters, he said it was an effort of three months by the EC in creating awareness among the people.
“It involved a lot of preparatory work, including the addition of new voters, which began in December last and continued till March 2013. By the end of March, we had included 30 lakh voters,” he said.
Region specific
Stating that the campaign to create awareness among eligible voters was more region specific, Jha said that, “We ran this awareness programme for almost a month, which included use of media, direct appeal by the students to come and vote, streetplays and use of folk art forms like Yakshagana. It also included streetplays, human chains, cycle rallies and resident association initiatives, “ he said.
On the missing names in voters’ lists, Jha said these were because the voters were either unavailable when the authorities visited their homes to cross-check the names in the electoral lists or the voters whose names had gone missing might not have checked the draft voters’ list on the EC’s website or at the ward office or the polling booth.
Accident-free
He said the elections were incident-free thanks to the use of technology like webcasting and video cameras at the polling booths, which kept away mischief makers away.