Pessimists believing in futility of awareness drives conducted to increase voter participation may need to correct themselves if they take glance at the polling percentage in Assembly election-2014 up to phase-3. A quantum jump in the voter turnout compared to the elections conducted in 2009 has been observed since Jharkhand went to polls.
Notably, phase-2 of the Assembly election registered close to 68.01 per cent voting, a jump of 7.63 per cent since 2009 in the constituencies that went to poll in 2014 elections. Polling percentage in phase-3 was recorded as 63.91 per cent.
According to Chief Electoral Officer of Jharkhand PK Jajoria the percentages have increased because of programmes like Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme and SMS- campaigns launched (for voters awareness) in which three SMSes were sent to voters in a day.
A massive voter awareness drive undertaken under SVEEP focused on communicating the significance of voting across to the voters through street plays and a host of other measures like brining school children onboard to encourage their parents to exercise their franchise in the election.
The awareness campaign designed by independent agencies especially for the people of Jharkhand and vetted by the Election Commission of India reflected in greater participation in rural areas and in some urban areas where voting has been very low in 2009.
Jamshedpur is among the urban areas where the office of the CEO claims voter awareness programme bore fruits. While Jamshedpur-East registered a turnout of 60.93 per cent in 2014 (45.19 per cent in 2009) Jamshedpur-West witnessed a turnout of 59.65 per cent (42.17 per cent in 2009) in the election.
But apart from awareness drive that is often an outsourced activity, the office of the CEO claims higher percentage to be an outcome of the efforts made by the office for bringing more eligible people in the electoral roll while the roll revision process to eliminate ‘ghost voters’ across the State. According to the office, about 10-lakh to 15-lakh ‘ghost voters’ were removed from the electoral roll during revision process whereas about 35-lakh new voters were added in the roll before the elections.
Significantly, the number of voters in the 20 constituencies that went to poll in phase-two on December 2 was 4427428 compared to 3762385 in 2009. Thus the number of voters also jumped to 3010945 in the current elections from 2270734 leading to an increase of 740211 number of voters since last Assembly elections. Also, number of voters in third phase constituencies reached to 5014084 in 2014 from 4287302 in 2009 elections that resulted in an increase of 797893 number of voters in 2014 Assembly elections.
Incidentally, like in the first phase, female voters in the second phase too exhibited an inclination towards democratic processes as all constituencies register a greater turnout of female voters thus causing a jump of 9.17 percentage points since previous Assembly election. While female turnout in 2009 was 58.37 per cent it rose to 67.54 per cent in 2014.