BENGALURU: Awareness drives by citizen groups have led to enthusiasm, even excitement, among certain sections of Bengalureans, who are all ready to cast their votes on Saturday. In the 2013 Assembly elections, the Bengaluru Urban district had recorded a turnout of 52.83 per cent — the lowest in the state. However, citizen groups are hoping for a better turnout this time.
Member of the group Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) Srinivas Alavilli said there was palpable excitement among the active citizens, a lot of whom had put in efforts to make more people vote. “One of the city’s biggest problems was people not voting because of internal migration. Now, citizen groups have carried out a lot of work on voter registration,” he said.
Alavilli said the fact that most political parties had incorporated demands from the manifesto prepared by CfB into their manifestos, made the citizens feel a sense of ownership towards the election. First time voters too are naturally excited. Varchaswini NM (22) is one such voter, even more so because she had just missed the bus during the 2014 election as she was 17. “I am pretty excited to go and see how exactly everything works. Many of my friends voted last time so I was really disappointed last time,” she said.