Mass drive in low voter turnout areas on April 14

A mass drive to spread awareness on voting in areas that had witnessed low voter turnout during the previous polls will be launched on April 14, Sveep Committee Chairman and Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer (CEO) R Selvamani said on Friday.

He was responding to a query at the phone-in programme, organised by Prajavani, at DH-PV Editorial Office in Balmatta.

Selvamani said, “People should participate in voting to make democracy a success. The Maoist-affected areas in the district had registered good turnout in the previous elections when compared to Mangaluru City.”

An awareness drive will be carried out by NSS volunteers, NCC cadets, students, BLOs (booth level officers) and officials in areas which had witnessed poor voter turnout, he added.

The CEO said five to six mobile vehicles were engaged in creating awareness on voting. Additionally, four vehicles will be deployed.

Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) Gayathri Nayak said the floating population in Mangaluru may be one of the reason for poor voter turnout in the city. After the Assembly elections in May 2018, we had conducted a survey by visiting households in Mangaluru city and deleted over 6,000 names of those who had shifted from Mangaluru and also the names of the deceased persons from the voters list.

To a query from Radhakrishna Panja on arrangements made in Maoist-affected areas, the ZP CEO said police officers and sector magistrates had already visited the affected areas to look into the security arrangements. “An awareness is also created through ITDP (Integrated Tribal Development Project) officials and the demands of the people are also being looked into.”

The CEO replied in negative when Ibrahim, a resident, sought to know whether linking of Aadhaar with EPIC was mandatory. “However, the Election commission of India’s (ECI) attention will be drawn to the suggestion on linking Aadhaar with EPIC,” he said.

The model code of conduct committee is monitoring the social media campaign. Those who campaign for a candidate on social media should take consent from the candidate. On online voting, the CEO said that secrecy of voting as mentioned in the Constitution should be maintained.

Boycott election

The CEO said the authorities had received information about residents from 10 to 12 places threatening to boycott elections.

The officials, including Assistant Commissioner and Tahsildars, have visited such villages to convince the voters to take part in the ‘Festival of Democracy’. Measures had been taken to solve the demands of drinking water supply. Some demands that cannot be fulfilled due to model code of conduct would be realised after the election, Selvamani said.

Monitoring

The CEO said that a committee led by Lead Bank Manager had been constituted to keep a tab on suspicious transfer of huge amount of cash. The committee comprising deputy registrar of cooperatives, Assistant Expenditure Observer and Model Code of Conduct Nodal Officer daily collects bank data and monitors the transaction details. The committee looks into sudden transaction of cash in an inactive bank account as well.

37,063 Young voters

The district has 37,063 young voters in the age group of 18 to 19. The young voters are enthusiastic on exercising their franchise. Awareness is being created in all the colleges, ITI, professional colleges in the district on the need to exercise franchise.