CHANDIGARH: ‘Daughter voting with their parents’ selfie campaign has been launched by Sunil Jaglan, founder of Selfie with Daughter foundation, to inspire unmarried women to vote as polling percentage among them is very low in North India, especially in rural areas of Haryana. Accordingly, many young women have been contacted and are being convinced to exercise their franchise.
Sunil Jaglan former sarpanch of Bibipur village in Jind district, Haryana and founder of Selfie with Daughter foundation said, “This campaign has been started to motivate the parents to get their unmarried daughters to vote. Through the baseline survey conducted by our team across the country, we have found that the voting percentage of unmarried girls is very low in North India and espacially in Haryana. Therefore, we have appealed to post the selfie of daughters voting along with their parents at the polling booth with hashtag #selfiewithdaughter on social media.’’
“About fifteen days back we held a meeting after it came tolight that voting percentage was low in the first three phases across the country. There we discussed that unmarried women in rural areas of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh do not go to cast their votes despite the fact that they have valid votes, as firstly, they are discraged by their families, and secondly they themselves are scared.
Also many such women in urban areas also do not vote. Thus we tracked between 800-900 girls till date from the age of 18 to 24 years who have valid votes but till now have never voted in their life. We are trying to convince them to go with their parents and vote,’’ Jaglan shared.
“In the remaining three phases, the percentage of votes will increase across the country because of girls. We will urge all the party leaders to become women-friendly under clean politics and participate in the campaign to increase awareness among unmarried girls about their voting rights. Such selfie with daughter will be honored with the Best Selfie with Daughter Award on June 9 on the occasion of International Selfie with Daughter Day. Every year on June 9, on the occasion of Selfie with Daughter Day, along with awards to the three best selfies with daughters, the Panchayat is also awarded for its work for Gender Equality and Women Rights,’’ he said.
Jaglan said girls’ voting will create awareness about women’s rights in our country. He said the working style of the Election Commission is very beneficial and effective and positive efforts are being made to celebrate the voting festival of democracy across the country.