SVEEP fails to increase voter turnout in NK

Hubballi: The District Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) committees had expressed confidence of increasing voting percentage by 5 to 10 per cent ahead of the Lok Sabha election in North Karnataka.
To reach their target, the committees tried to create awareness among urban and rural voters by organizing several programmes in all the 12 Lok Sabha constituencies in the region.
But, most of the committees failed to increase polling even by 5 per cent when compared with the previous election. There was slight increase from 1 to 3 per cent in most constituencies in the region, with the exception of Dharwad, which had 70.06 per cent polling, an increase of 4.18 per cent (see table).
Some ZP CEOs who headed the SVEEP committee presidents said that Lok Sabha constituencies have a vast area to cover and they weren’t able to reach out to most of the villages. Voting trends will be different in LS polls compared to assembly elections and this is also a factor, they add.
Some SVEEP committee said they could not reach their expected target due to the increasing mercury level and glitches in EVMs in some places.
Bagalkot ZP CEO Gangubai Manakar said, “Though we made all out efforts to increase voter turnout, we failed to reach the expected target. Many people still do not understand importance of voting and they have to change their mind set.”
“Most of voters have migrated to other cities and states for work and this had an impact on voter turnout in Vijayapura,” said said ZP CEO Vikas Surlkar.
“Our concerted efforts and different themes helped increase voting percentage by 4.8 per cent this time,” said Dharwad zilla panchayat CEO B C Satish.
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