BBMP tackles low enrolment of first-time voters with awareness drive

Noticing sluggish registration of first-time voters in the 18-19 age group, the BBMP has launched an awareness drive targetting college students and pushing their officials for a door-to-door enrolment campaign.

Civic officials are shocked to learn that at least 40 per cent of the polling booths in the city have poor or no registration of first-time voters aged between 18 and 19, far below their expectation of registering at least one lakh of them this year. They could only manage 54,000.

“The general estimation is that at least 1 per cent of the population would be first-time voters. However, at the time of the final electoral roll, we saw that in Bengaluru, it was way less,” BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath told DH.

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Officials said Bengaluru has registered approximately 0.58 per cent of its population as new voters, and many polling stations reported zero registrations of first-time electors.

The BBMP has galvanised 3,000 Booth-Level Officers (BLOs) for door-to-door registration of young voters. “In areas where registration is nil, we have asked the BLOs to go house-to-house and encourage youngsters to get themselves enrolled,” Girinath added.

The civic body has also taken data from the Department of Collegiate Education to reach out to students.

“We have collected data from close to 4,700 institutions and we are setting up electoral literacy clubs and campus ambassadors to get the students to enroll themselves,” said Ujjwal Kumar Ghosh, BBMP Special Commissioner (Election).

1 lakh by March 1st week

Nearly 30,000 new voters have been registered in the last 15 to 20 days, Ghosh said, adding that the civic body aims to reach a further 25,000 voters in the next fortnight.

“Thanks to such measures, we are receiving close to 1,000 applications from youngsters a day. By the first week of march, we should be able to have at least one lakh voters registered,” he said.

Girinath believed that some young voters may have registered to vote in their hometowns, which could mean the actual number of new voters could be lower than what the Department of Collegiate Education data would suggest.

He added that they now target to get at least 1.3 to 1.4 lakh new voters on board.

A faculty from the city’s popular university told DH that the BBMP has been holding awareness drives in their campus to woo young voters. “We regularly talk to first-time voters about the importance of casting one’s vote and encourage them to enroll.”