Election Literacy Forum’ important for new voter registration – Chief Electoral Officer Shrikant Deshpande.
A special state-wide voter registration drive will be launched soon through NSS.
Mumbai: Voter registration is an important part of strengthening democracy and will increase turnout. As a part of this, the Department of School Education, Higher and Technical Education, Medical Education has issued a decision to set up the ‘Election Literacy Forum’ in every university. In this regard, by setting up an ‘Election Literacy Forum’ at the college level, it should become a platform for democratic empowerment, said Chief Electoral Officer Shrikant Deshpande.
Mr Deshpande was speaking at an online meeting with the coordinators of National Service Planning Centers of various colleges in the state under the special voter registration drive. The meeting was attended by Prabhakar Desai, Director, National Service Planning Center, NSS University Director, Coordinator and Dilip Shinde, Sweep Advisor, Chief Election Officer.
Every university, college, the school should participate in the registration of new voters through the ‘Lokshahi Club’. Students should be guided by inviting political leaders, experts from various fields on the club stage. Mr Deshpande also suggested that the students should be informed about the EVM machine used for voting so that this platform can be further enabled.
The important work of updating the voter list is done continuously by the Election Department. At this time, from 1st to 30th November 2021, awareness is coming through students to register maximum new voters and on 13th, 14th, 27th and 28th November 2021, camps are being organized in every constituency of the state. Also, Gram Sabha is being organized on 16th November 2021 in which the voter list will be read at Gram Panchayat level. Chief Electoral Officer Shrikant Deshpande informed that the students who will do excellent work in this special voter registration program will be given marks and certificates on National Voters’ Day through the Election Office.
Prabhakar Desai, Director, National Service Planning Center, said that a comprehensive roadmap would be prepared by the National Service Planning Center and sent to the Election Department and the Government of Maharashtra. He mentioned that every student will be involved in these activities which will be implemented under the special voter registration campaign.
