Ahead of the 2022 Assembly election in Himachal Pradesh, the Himachal Election Watch, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Himachal Gyan Vigyan Samiti on Sunday jointly launched a State-wide “electoral literacy campaign” to encourage voter awareness in those areas which saw a voter turnout below 60% in the 2017 Assembly election.
In 2017, the State witnessed a voter turnout close to 75%, however, there were 277 polling booths in 43 Assembly constituencies, which saw voter percentage below 60%.
“Our aim is to increase the voter percentage. During our campaign, public dialogues will be conducted in rural areas while workshops will be held in the urban areas where the voter turnout in the previous Assembly election was less than the State percentage (75%). The State election department has identified as many as 277 polling booths where voter turnout in the State was less than 60% in the previous poll. These booths are spread across 43 Assembly constituencies in the State out of the total 68 segments,” O.P. Bhuraita, Coordinator, Himachal Election Watch told The Hindu on Sunday.
Pointing out that the purpose of the campaign was to motivate people to exercise their right to vote, Mr. Bhuraita said that they aim to cover over 1,000 villages and close to 20 cities and towns during the campaign.
“We will hold workshops to motivate the youth and involve them in the election dialogues. The objective of the campaign is to make people aware of the importance of voting and motivate them not to boycott voting. It also aims to involve them in dialogue on development issues,” he said.
Mr. Bhuraita said as per the Supreme Court directives it is mandatory for political parties at the Central and State election level to upload on their website detailed information regarding candidates with pending criminal cases including the nature of the offences, relevant particulars like whether charges have been framed, the concerned Court, the case number etc.
“While we will approach the Election Department and urge them to monitor the publication of this information on websites, print media and social media, we will ask the public to question political leaders and parties surrounding these issues,” he added.
