SVEEP does the trick in an issueless election

Rural areas voted in unprecedented numbers, though the turnout in urban areas was marginal in Belagavi district

May 15, 2018 12:48 am | Updated 12:48 am IST - Belagavi

Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer and SVEEP Committee chairman R. Ramachandran during  the launch of the voter awareness programme in Belagavi.

Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer and SVEEP Committee chairman R. Ramachandran during the launch of the voter awareness programme in Belagavi.

Concerted efforts by the Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation Committee seem to have done the trick, in an otherwise issueless election in Belagavi district.

While rural areas voted in unprecedented numbers, the turnout in urban areas has been marginal.

In Belagavi district, the average voting was 75.99 %, three per cent higher than the State average.

However, the average voting in the two seats in the city was 62 %. If the city had voted as enthusiastically as the other parts of the district, it would have pushed the district average to 78 %.

But still, polling has been an average seven points higher than the last election and around 3.2 points higher for the city seats. Officials attribute this to the voter awareness and other programmes taken up under the SVEEP programme.

“A focussed campaign that tried to address doubts in the minds of the people helped us,” says Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer and SVEEP Committee chairman R. Ramachandran. He has led the “#Belagavivows100percentpolling” campaign since the polls were announced.

“We broke down the campaign into various streams to help different groups. We had different campaigns for the third gender, disabled, senior citizens, women and first-time voters. This helped us take the exact message to the targeted groups,” he said.

An equally robust campaign was launched online. Social media handles of the SVEEP Committee sent out text, audio and video messages to encourage voters to exercise their franchise. Mr. Ramachandran’s recorded messages and jingles by artistes were broadcast through the radio and social media handles.

For example, the campaign for the third gender began by urging the activists to convince members to enrol themselves in the third gender category. “We met with modest success as 276 persons enrolled. But then, this was more than in the earlier years,” said an officer of the Department of Social Welfare, who was part of the campaign.

A special meeting of officers and non-governmental organisation members was convened to discuss issues faced by the physically challenged during polling. Ramps were set up in all booths, wheelchairs were kept in some booths and material such as magnifying glasses were provided to booths to help those with limited vision. Disabled voters were allowed to bring along a relative or friend to help them vote. Officials were also instructed to help them vote without any hassle.

Similarly, live demonstrations were staged for first-time voters by visiting colleges. Mr. Ramachandran set up mock polling booths in some colleges in the city and other taluks to show the students how the EVMs and VVPATs were to be used.

Leaders of women’s groups were trained in speaking about voter awareness. Special events were held for women in far-off taluks where NGO members, ASHAs and Anganwadi workers motivated the audience to vote fearlessly.

The Sakhi pink polling booths in 20 places helped increase women’s polling ratio, according to officers concerned. “It also created a lot of good will towards the Election Commission,” an officer involved in the arrangement.

Senior officers attended weddings in rural areas and distributed pamphlets about the need to vote. SVEEP centres were set up at fairs and festivals.

The 2018 election otherwise, remained issueless. Problems of lack of civic amenities in Belagavi or the slow pace of infrastructure works in the city, water scarcity in some parts, power outages, and others did not become election issues. No candidate spoke of infrastructure issues barring BJP’s Abhay Patil and Firoze Sait of the Congress.

In rural areas, no one spoke of the delay in payment of sugarcane arrears by factories, of falling prices of farm produce, of long pending irrigation projects, or of the lack of good roads to connect villages with towns.

Candidates remained shy of mentioning issues specific to Belagavi, including the problems of beedi workers and tobacco growers in Athani and Nippani, or the lack of power supply to villages bordering forests in Khanapur taluk, or the seasonal flooding of some villages in Belagavi Rural constituency.

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