The Chennai District Election Office will commence awareness campaigns in parks, beaches and public places to improve voter turnout in the Lok Sabha elections.
With the Chief Electoral Officer setting a target of increasing the voter turnout by 10 percent above the previous Lok Sabha elections, the District Election Office has chalked out strategies to identify and bridge gaps in voter turnout in the city.
Over 4,000 residents visit each of the large parks a day. As several thousands of visitors throng the 324 parks in the city and beaches, they will be the focus of the next round of awareness programmes on voting, including ethical voting.
Messages through folk art forms such as Thappattam will also be part of the awareness programmes that will be taken up based on the socio-cultural profile of each neighbourhood, election officials said.
Civil society organisations will play a key role in awareness creation. The District Election Office will also use the data on residents’ associations collected recently by the Chennai Corporation.
The data was compiled as part of the efforts initiated to redress civic complaints in the city.
Media meetMeanwhile, representatives of media organisations will meet with Chennai District Election Office officials on Tuesday to detect and control paid news in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
The media cell and media centre in Chennai District has already started functioning.
Starting this week, the media cell will intensify screening of all news stories in broadsheet newspapers and tabloids to spot aspects likely to have been influenced by political parties using monetary rewards. A dedicated set of personnel will also track all news stories on electronic and social media.
Officials participating in the meeting on Tuesday will also conduct sensitisation programmes on media certification. Representatives of political parties will also be present at the meeting.
