New Delhi, Jun 11 (PTI) A sleek vehicle equipped with LED screens, public audio system and accompanied with a street theatre team is making rounds of the Rajinder Nagar assembly constituency to raise awareness among the voters ahead of the bypoll slated for June 23.
The vehicle, dubbed Democracy Rath, is an initiative of the office of the Delhi chief Electoral Officer (CEO), among a number of several campaigns to boost voter turnout in the bye-election.
“We have taken a number of initiatives to raise awareness among the voters ahead of the bypoll, and our target is that the voting percentage this time exceeds the turnout in 2020 Assembly polls,” Delhi CEO Ranbir Singh said.
In the 2020 polls, the voter turnout in Rajinder Nagar constituency was 58.27 per cent — 58.09 per cent for male voters and 58.50 per cent for female voters; and at 14 polling stations, it was less than 50 per cent.
So, this time, a special on-ground campaign will be run at 50 polling stations where the turnout was low last time, the CEO said.
Asked, if anything new being done while preparing for the Rajinder Nagar bypoll, he said, “We are running a Democracy Rath at an assembly constituency-level, and that is something new at this level”.
This Democracy Rath is moving around in the city to raise awareness among voters. It is equipped with LED screens, public audio system and accompanied with a street theatre team, which will perform at various places, he said.
“One team will perform at two places in the morning, and another team will perform later in the day at another two places. So, a total of four places are being covered in a day,” Singh said.
To raise awareness, Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor has been chosen as an icon, and her images will be used on posters and social media to reach out to greater number of voters, especially the youth, ahead of the bypoll.
Young cricketer Yash Dhull was recently chosen as a Delhi State Icon by the Election Commission, and he would also help raise awareness among the voters, he said.
The Delhi CEO Singh on Friday had said that a total of 1,64,698 electors are eligible to cast their vote in the June 23 bye-election.
Of the total number of eligible voters for the bypoll, 92,221 are male, 72,473 female and four belong to the third gender, he said.
Also, 1,899 voters in this assembly seat are in the 18-19 age group.
The number of eligible voters in the Rajinder Nagar assembly seat for the 2022 bypoll is less than the count of electors in this assembly seat that was for the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections, as death and migration of voters have been factored in, Singh later told PTI on the sidelines of the briefing.
The number of eligible electors during the 2020 Delhi Assembly polls was 1,77,159 — 1,00,171 males and 76,988 and zero voter in the third gender category, a senior official said.
The bypoll has been necessitated in the wake of AAP Raghav Chadha leaving the seat after being elected to the Rajya Sabha recently.
From deployment of security personnel to monitoring poll code violations and from building voter awareness to ensuring necessary facilities, the Delhi CEO office is making all preparations to ensure that the upcoming Rajinder Nagar bypoll is inclusive, accessible and fair. PTI KND RCJ RCJ
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