As many as 10,000 rangolis will be drawn in front of houses, parks and temples across the city as part of the Systematic Voters’ Education And Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme.
Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has taken up this initiative in association with a city-based NGO Samarpana.
Samarpana’s Secretary Shivakumar Hosamani told City Express that many people tend to go for a vacation due to a series of holidays during the election time. A number of awareness initiatives like distributing pamphlets, street play and folk jathas have been take up.
“Creating awareness through rangoli is a different initiative, where our people draw rangoli with a message at people’s door steps. People, once they leave their house for work, will see rangoli with this message. We will also draw rangolis at crowded places like parks and bus stops,” he said.
Stressing on rangoli, Hosamani said it is part of Indian culture. “We are using powders made out of rice mixed with sugar, maize andwheat to get different colours of rangoli,” he added.
Also, during summer birds and ants do not get much food. “The birds and ants can eat this sugar, rice, maize and wheat power used for rangoli. We are using these grains which are unfit to eat by human beings. We are collecting from APMC yards, where grains fall on streets,” he explained.
As many as 40 students from eight colleges including Basaveshwara College in Rajajinagar, KLE education institutions, Bharathi Samsruktiya Vidya Samsthe and a few government colleges are involved in this initiative. “Each student will get a renumeration of `500 for five hours a day (rangoli will be drawn from 5.30 am),” Hosamani said. They are expected to draw 2,000 Rangolis per day for the next five days.
Dhanashekar S A, final year BCom student at Government First Grade College, Peenya, is also part of the team.
“Six various designs of rangoli frames with messages in English and Kannada are given to us. These frames are made out of plastic. We need to keep it on the ground and fill the colours. In our team, there are six people. Each one of us are given 2 kg of rice and maize. We need two people to make one design and it takes at least three minutes to make one design,” he said.
“Along with residential areas, we were also told to draw rangolis in government offices, parks and temples,” he added.
Rangoli drawing schedule
April 5: Rajajinagar 1st and 2nd Blocks
April 6: BTM 1st and 4th Stage
April 7: Basaveshwaranagar, Vijayanagar
April 8: Rajarajeshwarinagar, Jayanagar
April 9: Malleswaram
400 street plays Twelve teams
comprising 144 artistes will stage 400 street plays to create awareness about voting among the pople at various places across the city. BBMP and the Department of Kannada and Culture have jointly taken up this initiative. These street plays will be staged for the next 10 days. Launching the initiative, BBMP Commissioner M Lakshminarayana said, “Fifty seven per cent people cast their vote in last Assembly election and through these initiatives, we are expecting more voters’ turn out this time.”