CEC laments youth apathy in Mumbai,Delhi

As India observed the ‘National Voters Day’ on Wednesday, the Election Commission (EC) lamented the apathy of the young voters towards the electoral process in Mumbai and Delhi.

The poll regulator, however, has complimented the Zee News initiative for encouraging voters across India through its third year running campaign ‘Aapka Vote Aapki Taakat’.

Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi complimented Zee News for its initiative and hoped media in general would follow suit in promoting the right to vote campaign.

“Take inspiration from initiative of Zee News. Let other news channels and newspapers also run such campaigns to motivate voters to exercise their right,” Quraishi said. He hoped that such campaigns would one day indeed lead to cent per cent voter turnout in.

“This year 3.8 crore new voters have been enrolled of which 1.10 crore belong to the age group of 18 who have just become eligible. The first time voter category between 18-22 years of age is a specific area of concern for Election Commission,” the CEC told Dileep Tiwari of Zee News in an exclusive interview.

Quraishi cited lower participation by women as another concern area. “The situation has been improving but still there are some gaps to fill. If women constitute 927/1,000 males then why the women voters registration is just about 675 per 1,000 male voters.”

Commenting on the changed poll scenario, he asserted that while muscle power was no more a part of elections nowadays the advent of money power had emerged as the main concern in credible poll management.

On the growing demand for ‘right to recall’, he said, “It is not possible to implement such laws as these could be misused. If this Bill gets implemented, people will go after the life of every winning candidate”, he apprehended.

The EC has pinned its hopes on a better than 44-45% voter turnout in UP.