Pune: Election officials, with the help of housing federation members, have initiated ‘My Society, Aware Society‘ campaign in a bid to address urban voter apathy.
This initiative is targeted at areas that previously recorded dismal voter turnouts.
The initiative is important as key urban assembly constituencies like Pune Cantonment and Shivajinagar registered less than 45% voter participation in the 2019 assembly polls. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has flagged these areas for poor turnout, a senior election official told TOI on Saturday.
Ahead of the announcement for polls, ECI had directed election officials to address urban voter apathy with special focus on 15 assembly constituencies in the state that recorded less than 50% polling in the last assembly elections. Both Shivajinagar and Pune Cantonment registered only 43% voter turnout in the 2019 assembly polls, while the total polling for Pune district was 58%, which was less than the state average of 61%.
Deputy election officer Minal Kalaskar told TOI that the initiative has commenced in all the 21 assembly constituencies in the district, and the aim is to improve voter turnout. “Key members of housing societies have taken a resolution to reach out to maximum members and ensure that they come out and vote on polling day,” she said. This time, around 126 polling booths are in housing societies to facilitate the voting process as against 35 societies during the Lok Sabha elections. Election officials have also targeted around 2,000 polling booths which registered low polling in previous elections.
Suhas Patwardhan, chairman, Maharashtra State Housing Federation, said, “All committee members of 19,000 registered housing societies in the district have been told to ensure that residents are made aware of the importance of voting.” “Through ‘My Society, Aware Society’ initiative, we’re mobilising committee members to become champions of democratic participation,” said another federation member.
Activist Rohan Desai from National Society of Clean Cities said, “The ECI needs to have a dedicated team of BLOs for election work, and their contact numbers should be made available in the public domain so that they can be contacted ahead of elections.” Representatives of housing societies are doing their bit after meetings with district election officials on increasing voter awareness, he added.
Chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar, along with election commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Dr SS Sandhu, had earlier issued special directives to election officers in Pune, Mumbai city, Thane, and Mumbai suburban areas to develop a targeted action plan to address the persistent issue of urban voter apathy in 15 assembly constituencies with less than 50% polling.
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