Voter awareness programme has intensified as electioneering reached fever pitch and if the first phase of elections are a test of candidates in the poll fray it is also a test of awareness drives launched in the State.
A number of important steps have been taken by district administration with the help of non-governmental organizations since lok Sabha elections to improve voter’s participation in the electoral process in Assembly elections.
Jharkhand although witnessed highest ever voter turnout in lok Sabha elections of 2014 since it started sending direct representatives to the lower house there has not been a dearth of measures to draw more voters to the polling stations. Since the lS elections a new set of approach has been rolled out at panchayat level to better keep a voter informed about the entire election process –from getting name registered in the voters list to obtaining photo identity card besides obtaining information about the polling station and how to cast vote in the end. The initiative has been launched by Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) in 12 districts of Jharkhand.
“We have focused especially on Santhal and parts of Dhanbad districts where in certain pockets voter turnout was low,” said Associate Programme Coordinator, ADRI, BB Mahto. ADRI, which is the state resource centre for undertaking voter awareness drive with the district administration, has introduced around 1000 lok Shiksha Kendra which are serving the dual purpose of facilitation centre for voters in a manner approved by the Election Commission of India.
Such centres are being used to improvise existing methods and prepare need based awareness programmes by collecting a voter’s views related to election.
“The methods of spreading awareness like using texts and materials are vetted by the ECI before we can use them at our centre. We have deputed two motivators at each centre to facilitate a voter and we also maintain a record of their views, opinions and expectations in a register to ascertain how we can improve our programmes to meet the objective of awareness programme,” said media in-charge of ADRI, Ranchi, Dilip Kumar.
Be it flip charts to posters with messages directed at a voter seeking participation and using franchise judiciously has been the emphasis to perk up voting percentage compared to lS elections. The district administration today will dispatch two groups of artists, 12 each, who will be visiting urban areas of Ranchi, Ramgarh, Bokaro and Dhanbad to depict significance of voting through songs and street plays.
“The songs have been carefully examined by ECI and every word has been chosen to encourage a voter to cast vote in elections,” said Programme Coordinator of ADRI, Ramchandra Singh.
Nonetheless, the association entrusted with the responsibility of educating a voter with objective outlined by ECI rues lack of empirical evidences to suggest whether these methods actually work and voters respond to the stimuli. The only effective method is to check the turnout on the day of the polling, claim ADRI officials.