Poll panel reach out southern voters

Delhi’s election commission has for the first time set its eyes on the 16 lakh voters from southern states and is reaching out to them so that they can exercise their vote and play an active role in deciding the fate of the seven high-profile Parliamentary seats in the forthcoming election.

The move is aimed to increase the voting percentage in the capital, seat of governance in the country, and also to ensure that people from other regions living in the capital do not feel left out.

The Delhi Elector Office has planned several awareness programmes including nukkad natak and musical programmes in the run up to the elections and also roped in Tollywood singers to send the message across in areas inhabited by people from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the capital.

"The nukkad natak will be performed in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam languages and. Some NGOs and various active theater groups are lending us a helping hand in the awareness campaigns targetting people from southern states living in the capital for several decades," said an official.

Around 16 lakh people from these states live in the national capital and most of the South Indian population is concentrated in areas like Munirka, Ber Sarai, R K Puram, Mayur Vihar, Dilshad Garden, and Dwarka, Uttam Nagar and Vikaspuri.

“We want voters to come in hordes and take part in the biggest electoral process. Why should people from one region be left behind and feel alienated?,” Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Dev said.

“Since we organised special camps to reach out to people migrated from north eastern states, we have also planned a special programme for Southern states voters. They sometimes feel themselves alienated,”

The officer said that they have planned these programmes so he can achieve one of the prime goals of the commission -- 100 per cent voting. “To ensure record voting turnout in 2014 Lok Sabha polls and to bring awareness these programme would be organised,” he said.

The electoral office has planned to do such cultural functions outside various south Indian temples and restaurants apart from the areas where they are living. “Candle march will also be organised to motivate these voters,” said Dev.

Sobhana Sukumaran, who hails from Kerala’s Kottayam and is living in Dwarka for last one decade, said, “It good to hear that. We came to Delhi for livelihood around three decades ago and still sometimes we feel that we are left out. These kinds of initiatives make us feel that we have also stake in the city’s politics and development.”

Similarly, A K Roy, President of East Delhi’s Mayur Vihar Phase Two Resident Welfare Association said, “In collaboration with district election officer we had also organised a special camp outside the temple in out locality to get south Indian people enrolled in voter list. We will further carry such initiatives.”

Interestingly, during Delhi assembly in 2013, Bharatiya Janata Party fielded M Venkaiah Naidu, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj to campaign in these localities and so tap southern states voters.

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Committee to monitor parties making false promises in Delhi

March 5: Taking note on Election Commission’s decision to prevent political parties from indulging into ‘non-implementable’ promises in their poll documents, the Delhi’s Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Dev said that they have formed a committee on Wednesday to keep eye on parties and their leaders making such false promises.

“If anyone, be it a political party or politician, found making any false election promises, they would be booked for violation of Model Code of Conduct,” Vijay Dev said.

The committee comprises of three members and they will interact with nodal poll officers.  “They would be checking the manifestos of the political parties as well as try to attended rallies where these non-implementable promises can be announced,” said the officer.

After the Election Commission fixed the date of April 10 for voting in the city for parliamentary elections, the Delhi election commission has pulled up its socks to register maximum voters and make the elections successful.

Vijay Dev also said that till January this year 1, 28,424 new voters have enrolled in the electoral list after last year’s Assembly election. The last day for enrolment is on March 12.

 “There are 66, 84,476 male voters and 53, 76,017 female voters including 638 others (eunuchs). We will launch an extensive media campaign to invite maximum applications for new enrolments,” said Dev adding that getting a voter card does not guarantee citizen to cast their vote till the time their names are not listed in electoral roll.

From March 9 the commission will launch a special programme at selected polling booth. The officials will be present there to collect forms from new voters and check the names of existing voters manually in the voters list. The list of such booths will be released before March 8.

For differently able voters, the poll panel has initiated a sensitisation programme of its employees. “We will ensure that every differently able person is being helped to cast the vote,” Dev added.

The commission will depute more than 85,000 civil officials and the same number of security personnel, including 35,000 Delhi police officials.

 “We have launched our training programme for all of these officials. It is not an uphill task for us in such short notice period as most of the officials have recently conducted Assembly elections,” he added.

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