The Election Commission Uttar Pradesh under the SVEEP (Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation) is not only wooing the voters to vote for the coming lok Sabha Elections but is also engaging them to participate as motivators for others. Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha while talking to "The Pioneer" on Thursday said that they already have campus ambassadors at 1500 major colleges and they would now extend this to schools for spreading awareness on exercising ones franchise.
"We have campus ambassadors at major colleges but we will extend this to the schools. These campus ambassadors will be provided a kit and training in all the SVEEP features and awareness programmes will be held at the institutes" he said.
The Cheif Electoral Officer said that SVEEP had started in 2011 to rope in student volunteers and has moved out to all positive and apolitical institutions later on. " Seeing the urban apathy as regards voting this initiative has been carried out to create synergy in the youth who should not only come forward to vote but also motivate others and
thus help in removing apathy. When we started out we were only associated with the students however now we are associated with several civil organizations which are
apolitical such as well known clubs and other organizations" he said.
Among the two recently launched novel initiatives by the Election Commission are the E Chain and Voters Quotient. "The E chain is the idea to have enlightened votes post their voters ID card along with a message on our facebook account which would create a potpourri of creative things" he said.
The CEO said that the Voters Quotient which they had started was similar to the gauging of the emotional and the intelligence quotient. "The Voters Quotient is similar to the Emotional and the Intelligence quotient wherein the voters Voter Quotient is gauged. In this he will have to answer thirty questions and if he secures a certain percentage he will be given a badge. We will carry this both online and offline" he said.
The Chief Electoral Officer is confident that they would have a turnout which will be more than ten to fifteen percent than last time.
"We are confident that the turnout would be not less than seventy to seventy five percent this lok Sabha elections with an increase of 10-15 percentage of voters turning up in Uttar Pradesh" he said.