BENGALURU : Going door-to-door to help people get themselves enrolled in the voters’ list, helping apartments conduct voter registration drives, working with officials to iron out issues, tying up with private vendors to offer coupons or discounts that include messages on the importance of exercising one’s vote... Citizens’ groups across the city are all geared up ahead of the Lok Sabha election. Resident Welfare Associations are leaving no stone unturned in ensuring that fellow Bengalureans register themselves as voters,and cast their franchise on the polling day.
“Four months ago, Bangalore Apartments’ Federation (BAF) tied up with Reliance Trends to encourage people to vote. We sent individual envelopes to 50,000-odd flats that are part of our federation, including shopping coupons from the vendor and a message telling them to vote,” said Srikanth Narasimhan, general secretary, BAF.
The organisation has been conducting awareness and enrollment drives for one-and-a-half years. “We started this before the Karnataka elections itself. We helped each apartment conduct an enrollment drive in coordination with booth-level officers, and worked with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and Election Commission (EC) in resolving glitches faced by people while enrolling,” Narasimhan added.
The group is now working on creating awareness via WhatsApp, email and social media. Similarly, Abdul Aleem, president of Kanakapura Road Apartments Movement of Change (KARAMOC), said they conducted a door-to-door campaign last month. They got 1000 people to either register as new voters, or helped them transfer their state or constituency if have they moved here recently.
“Our volunteers went to each home and collected filled forms to submit to the EC. When we go to politicians or local leaders regarding civic issues, they tell us apartment residents do not vote. We want to change that perception,” Aleem said, adding that it took one week to get the work done.
Aleem added that the job does not end at ensuring that people have their voter IDs. “We have to educate them to actually go out on the day and vote. We are now working on campaigns to address that,” he said.
Over 1,000 people also got registered in the last three months owing to enrollment drive conducted by the resident welfare group, Bellandur Development Forum.
“We have conducted six to seven camps in Bellandur. Residents volunteered to assist booth-level officers and conduct enrollment camps at apartments. BBMP officials at the ward level worked with us to help in registration, transfer and even resolved errors in cases there was any duplication,” said Vishnu Prasad, president of the forum, adding that this was a part of the Million Voter Rising campaign started by the Whitefield Rising group.“Even on the day of voting, we will be keeping a track of the number of people who turn up to vote,” Prasad added.