In a bid to persuade the youth, particularly college students, to get registered with electoral roll, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in Delhi has decided to launch a special campaign in 150 colleges across the Capital from August onwards.
It has also decided to rope in youth icons like star cricketer Virat Kohli to attract maximum number of young voters. Not only Kohli, but plans are there to rope in more celebrities especially from Delhi, including film stars, so that the young voters are enthused to register themselves.
Senior officers of the Chief Electoral Office said the decision was taken after it was observed that very few youths were registered with the electoral roll. According to their estimate, till now around 98,000 students between the age group of 18-22 years enrolled themselves with the voters list. The Chief Electoral Office’s target is to register around 2.5 lakh youth voters. In the Capital, there are around 1.12 crore voters.
It was decided that the campaign will kick off first at the Delhi University and a five-member team will be formed, who will visit the campus from August 1. The campaign will last till end of August and officers are hopeful that the number of young voters enrolling themselves in the voters’ list will increase. Meanwhile, it was also decided that around 20 teams will be formed, who will visit around 150 colleges in the Capital in the month of August for campaigning.
Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Dev said that the effort has been taken in order to improve their participation in the electoral process. “We have already conducted women camps for maximum enrollment of women in the electoral roll too and it was a success.” he added.
A senior officer said that in order to understand the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of the young electors towards registration in the electoral roll, the Center for Developing Society (CSDS) has been engaged to conduct a survey which will be completed within this month. Even Dev’s office is organising training programmes for the senior polling personnel as well as other staffs of the office on how to organise attractive programmes to draw young voters to get registered.