New Delhi, May 29: Aiming to bring every eligible youth on electoral rolls by National Voters' Day in January next, Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi has sought Information and Broadcasting Ministry's support for necessary awareness and outreach activities.
In a letter to I&B Minister Ambika Soni, the CEC has asked her to direct the media units of her ministry to get in touch with Chief Electoral Officers of states that are going to polls next in achieving this goal.
Quraishi has also appreciated the ministry's support in helping increase voters' participation in the recently-concluded assembly elections in five states of Goa, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
“The Commission seeks your support in necessary environment-building and outreach campaign for the National Voters' Day on 25th January, 2013, aimed at bringing every eligible youth on the electoral roll of the country,” Quraishi wrote to Soni.
“I look forward to even higher level of cooperation from your ministry in the coming assembly elections in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland,” he added.
Appreciating the I&B Ministry's support in achieving a significantly higher level of voters' participation in the just-concluded assembly polls, the CEC said, “The contribution from your Ministry's field offices, especially those of Doordarshan and AIR and their News Divisions and DFP helped us to provide adequate effect to the Systemic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme of the Commission.”
Quraishi said in all the five states that went to polls “the turout was historic record in all the states” except Manipur and women outnumbered men in all these states and youth turnout was highly impressive.
“The achievements in turnout were preceded by equally high levels of registration, made possible by bringing on the roll the missing voters, a large segment of them in the 18-19 age group. These would not have been possible without distinct support from your departments,” Quraishi said in his letter.
The CEC also appreciated the role of Lucknow Kendra of Doordarshan and AIR and regional office of department of field publicity in Lucknow, and put on record the work on EC's DG Akshay Raut, a 1984-batch IIS officer for helping bring about this “participation revolution”.
