In view of the forthcoming general election, preparations are on to organise special voter awareness campaigns in the district. The district administration has started efforts to identify minimum polling centres in the three assembly constituencies of the district and to increase the voting percentage in these areas.
According to an official press statement issued here on Friday, the district election officer and collector R Prasanna has given directives to the nodal officer of Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) to prepare action plan to rectify the population-voting ratio and the voter-gender ratio in the district, under the SVEEP plan. The population voting ratio of the district is set at 66.75 per cent, whereas it is 60 per cent at present. Similarly, the gender ratio is 980/1000, but voters’ gender ratio is 972. In the 2003 assembly election the voting turnover was 68.14 per cent, whereas, it had increased to 75.66 per cent in 2008. A plan is on to further increase this percentage in the next election
It will be the first general election in the divided Sarguja district. The population of Sarguja district having three assembly constituencies is 8,74,327; but its total number of voters as on January 1, 2013 is 5,25,629. According to information received from district election office the number of photo I-card holder voters is 5,17,372, which comes to 98.48 per cent. Total women voters in the district are 2,59,068, which is 972/1000 as per the voter gender ratio. Ambikapur tehsil tops in the district with 90,239 women voters and Batauli tehsil is lowest with 21,817 women voters, followed by Mainpat with 21.365 women voters. The population of above 18 years in the district is 5,83,612, whereas the total number of voters is 5,25,629; which is 66.75 per cent as per the population-voter ratio, but at present it is 60.12 per cent. looking to the difference, 57,983 voters have been left out at present, in which 29,754 are women. Under SVEEP campaign will be launched to bring more and more voters to the poling booths. For this such polling areas would be earmarked where the average voting turnover was less in the last general election.