In its bid to make Delhi’s voters list more inclusive and complete, the Electoral Office is focusing on the homeless and migrant workers in the Capital before it wraps up the summary revision of electoral rolls for this year.
Chief Electoral Officer Chandra Bhushan Kumar would meet representatives of various NGOs and voluntary organisations on Monday to discuss strategies and receive suggestions to reach out to these voters. Mr. Kumar told The Hindu that the electoral office is welcome to all suggestions from organisations that are working to help the homeless population of Delhi. Though there are no authoritative figures available, the number of homeless people in the Capital is pegged at around one lakh.
“We want to reach out to the homeless and other marginalized sections of the society to include them in the electoral roll as more and more urban areas are getting added in Delhi,” Mr. Kumar said. He said that the electoral office has made such endeavours earlier also and wants to improve upon that. “In Delhi we have had the experience of reaching out to this population and we want to build on that and strengthen our mechanism,” he said.
Another target group that the electoral office is trying to focus on are the migrant workers, who are often not represented in the electoral rolls. Mr. Kumar, who has had a stint as Delhi’s Labour Commissioner earlier, is well aware of the places where such workers congregate for work and is using that experience to help focus on them.
Mr. Kumar said that there are about 100 ‘Labour Chowks’ in Delhi where the dehari mazdoor (daily wage labourers) gather every day and are picked up by employers looking for temporary workers. The electoral office is going to hold special camps right next to these chowks to enroll migrant workers.
“We are trying to create such linkages with departments and organisations to explore all kind of possibilities of enrolling voters. We are targeting them as groups and trying to work out how to reach them exclusively,” he said.
The electoral office is also focusing on women and the youth as target groups to ensure maximum enrolment. Special camps will be held on Sundays - October 11 and 18 - at all polling stations across the city to make it convenient for people to enroll or change their details in the electoral roll in case of any discrepancies.
To attract the youth, the electoral office is going to hold nukkad nataks or street plays at schools and other educational institutions. “It helps that most of our centres are in schools and we have tied up with theatre group Asmita for these street plays. All the work is done mostly at district level and the machinery is already aware and it is a drill that they have mastered,” he said. “These mechanisms are proven and have given results previously,” he said.
The electoral office published the draft electoral roll after summary revision on October 1 and voters can submit any claims or suggestions, if they want to make any changes in their details in the roll, till October 30.
Though there are no authoritative figures available, the number of homeless people in the Capital is pegged at around one lakh
