The Election Commission (EC) of India has launched a major campaign to enrol over 10 million young voters in the country. The campaign aims to facilitate the registration of new voters, with a focus on youngsters in the age group of 18 to 29 years. The move comes ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, scheduled for April-May 2024.
To help young voters register themselves, the EC has planned to conduct camps at schools and colleges. They will also be collaborating with booth-level agents affiliated with various political parties to work alongside booth-level officers during door-to-door visits for registration. These agents have been given permission to collect and submit up to 10 applications a day from potential voters.
According to the Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra, Shrikant Deshpande, the registration and deletion drive will begin from July 21. The drive will primarily focus on deleting names of people who have either shifted or died. Deshpande said that there were around 20% or over 16 million names in the electoral rolls that needed to be deleted for various reasons.
The EC will also organise voter registration programmes by setting up weekend camps near voters’ residences in September and October. Voters can also register themselves or make changes in their voter ID cards by submitting online applications on the EC website.
Maharashtra has 90.3 million registered voters, but many young voters are yet to register themselves. As many as 3.7 million of 4.5 million first-time voters in the age group of 18 to 19 years have yet to register themselves. Similarly, of the 22.8 million voters in the age group of 20 to 29 years, only 16.4 million are registered.
The EC wants to help young people who will turn 18 years old this year to register themselves as eligible voters. The drive aims to provide equal opportunities to all eligible voters to participate in the electoral process and strengthen democracy in the country.
