Dimapur, June 13, (EMN): With the target to enrolled more than 1 lakh plus left out voters especially the first time voters between the age group of 18 to 21 years across the State, the State Election department and the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Meghalaya will be launching the “Mission Unite Campaign” on July 1.
The State wide launching of the campaign will be held in Shillong and also in the various district headquarters of all the 11 eleven districts of the State on the same day. “We are launching this campaign as per the directive of the Election Commission of India (ECI). The campaign will commence from July 1 and will conclude on July 31,” Chief Electoral Officer, Frederick R Kharkongor told TNT newsmen after his meeting with the various political parties in the State at his chamber here on Tuesday.He also said that the ECI have put two dates 8th and 22nd July for the special enrolment drive.
Moreover, the Chief Electoral Officer said that they have tied up with a total number of 110 schools and colleges within Shillong city since the whole objective of the campaign is to target the first time voters between the age group of 18 to 21 years.
As per this Mission Unite Campaign, he said that the enrolment will take place in the school and college campus to ensure that there is no inconvenience to the students.
“We have engaged with the head of various schools and colleges in this exercise. In fact we have distributed about 11,000 voters enrolment forms in the various schools,” Kharkongor said adding, “We would also like to see that the disposal of claims can happen within the campuses. This is a new thing which we are trying to do and this will take care only of the new voters between the age of 18 and 21 who are in the campuses”.
Meanwhile, he said that the department had expressed its concern in its meeting with the leaders of the political parties regarding the non-student youth who are in the age between 18 to 21 and who are not in the campuses in schools and colleges.
Informing as per the available figures, Kharkongor said that their target is to enrol around 1 lakh plus voters including first time and left out voters.
In East Khasi Hills alone, he said that there are almost about 52,000 left out voters adding that the figure is very huge for a single district. “Among the constituencies in East Khasi Hills which has the highest gap is Nongkrem constituency which is around 15000. The rest of the constituencies have deficit ranging from 6000 to 20000 and 1000,” he said.
The Chief Electoral Officer that he already had a meeting with the Deputy Commissioner of East Khasi Hills and EROs to find out a mechanism to bridge this gap especially with the forthcoming Assembly polls in the State just round the corner.
“In fact, the Deputy Commissioner had constituted a team to find out the deficit polling stations in Nongkrem constituency. We would be able to have a clear picture on the reasons for this huge deficit once the Deputy Commissioner submits his report,” Kharkongor said.
The Chief Electoral Officer said that in the recently concluded summary revision, there is a 3.38 percent rise of new voters in the electoral rolls adding that a large number of those who have newly enrolled are the youth. According to Kharkongor, from amongst the electoral population of 17,19,000, about 10 lakh or so are population belonging to the age group of between18 to 39.
The Chief Electoral Officer informed that they have also discussed with the political parties on the issue of Voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verifiable paper record (VPR) adding that from the side of the Election Commission of India, they will have an arrangement for having a VVPAT in Meghalaya.
