The State election authority, the Chief Electoral Officer’s office, has launched a novel campaign “check your name” for ensuring that no eligible voter misses out the opportunity of exercising their franchise in the forthcoming elections.
Modelled on the lines of a similar campaign in Maharashtra, the innovative exercise, being conducted for the first time in Telangana, is being taken up as an intensive drive to educate electors about the need to check out their details in the voters’ lists. Voters are being asked to verify whether their names are in the electors roll, whether mistakes appeared in relation with their names, gender, age and other details and also about the polling stations in which that particular voter is placed.
The drive has been launched as the November 9 deadline for submitting applications for enrolment as new voters and for rectification of errors if any in the electors lists is approaching fast. According to guidelines, the election authority will accept fresh applications as well as requests for rectifying the mistakes till 10 days before the last date for filing nominations, November 19.
Voters desirous of getting the details changed are asked to submit their applications through the website of the CEO, www. ceotelangana.nic.in or approach the local election officials for effecting changes. “We are requesting the voters to visit the CEO’s website or the local officials to check whether things are proper,” CEO Rajat Kumar told The Hindu . The drive has been launched as part of the Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme launched by the Election Commission of India to increase the participation of people in the election process.
The check your name drive will be followed by campaign on ethical voting from November 9 wherein the electors will be educated about the importance of their vote and ensure that they did not fall to inducements offered by the contesting political parties.
