As many as 18,170 youngsters in the City Beautiful are eligible to vote for the first time in the lok Sabha elections 2014.
The first time voters in Chandigarh’s electors list include 11,593 males and 6,577 females. According to the electoral data as per the final publication of summary revision 2014 released by the Election Commission, Chandigarh has 18,170 electors aged between 18 and 19 years, in which male electors constitute 63.8 percent and female electors constitute 36.2 percent.
Chandigarh is ranked fourth among seven Union Territories for the numbers of electors aged 18 and 19 years. As per the EC electoral data, there are 10 States/UTs where the proportion of females among newly eligible electors is less than 40 per cent. The neighbouring Haryana has the lowest proportion at 28.3 per cent followed next by Maharashtra at 35.4 per cent. The first time voters registered in Haryana are 349,239, including 98,744 females and 250,495 males.
After the special summary revision of electoral rolls in the union territory of Chandigarh, the total number of voters in the city is pegged at 5,80,700. A total of 55,455 new voters including 29,332 male voters and 26,123 female voters were added to the electoral list in Chandigarh this year.
The voters list is revised every year. The process of revision of the voter list started on October 1, 2013 and continued for one month. Earlier, the city had 5,25,608 voters. During the revision of electoral rolls, a total of 363 elector names were also deleted from the voter list. With 18,170 first time voters in the city, the political parties are trying hard to woo these electors ahead of lok Sabha elections. The political parties including BJP, Congress and AAP have been organising various programmes to reach out to the first time electors of the city.
Aiming to garner the support of youth and first-time voters, Chandigarh BJP has launched programmes namely ‘Modi Caféteria’ and ‘Nayi Soch, Nayi Umeed, Nayi Rajneeti’ in college campuses here. These two campaigns have been particularly launched to popularise BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi among city’s youth. On the other hand, the ruling Congress and Opposition AAP have been organising debates and discussion programmes in college campuses to woo the youth and first time voters.
During last lok Sabha elections in 2009, out of over 5 lakh registered voters in the city, the slum colonies had around 1.6 lakh voters, city sectors had 2.8 lakh and villages had around 80,000 voters. In Chandigarh, the poll percentage in the year 2004 was 52.06 per cent. In 1998 and 1999, it was only 42.36 per cent and 46.99 per cent respectively. And, breaking the record of past 20 years, the voting percentage was recorded over 65.02 per cent in 2009.