GUWAHATI
A district in western Assam has gone pink to make its women vote as much as or more than their male counterparts.
Nalbari is among very few districts where almost all officers are women. Apart from District Commissioner and District Election Officer (DEO) Varnali Deka and Superintendent of Police Supriya Das, they include the Deputy DEO, Finance and Accounts Officer, Treasury Officer, District Information and Public Relations Officer, and District Social Welfare Officer.
The majority of the Additional Deputy Commissioners, Circle Officers, and Block Development Officers are women too. So are some 300 polling personnel across the district covering three Assembly segments of the Barpeta Lok Sabha constituency.
Women in the district, however, have lagged behind in exercising their franchise.
“In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, our district recorded a turnout of 83.5%, higher than the State average of 81.5% and the national average of 67.18%. But the gap between male and female voters in Nalbari was wider than those at the national and State levels,” Ms. Deka said on Friday.
While the male and female voting percentage nationally was 67.4 and 67.01 five years ago, the State recorded 81.7% and 81.4% of male and female voting respectively. In Nalbari, 84.4% of men voted compared to 82.4% of women, a gap of 2%.
The district officers and polling personnel have been taking up various Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) activities to encourage all sections to come forward and cast their votes.
“A mega SVEEP campaign was organised on Thursday to highlight the significance of active participation of women in the electoral process for the betterment of the nation,” Ms. Deka said.
The campaign entailed more than 300 women polling personnel and women officers turning up in mekhela chador, the traditional Assamese attire, in various hues of pink. They held pink placards with various SVEEP messages urging the unrolled people to apply for a voter card and others to assert their rights by casting their votes.
The pink campaign will culminate with the “manning” of 50% of the district’s urban polling stations entirely by women. The district goes to the polls in the third phase on May 7.
