Faridkot admn launches campaign to educate voters against bribe, liquor

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, April 20

In a first-of-its-kind initiative in the district, the Faridkot administration and office of Election Commission jointly organised public meetings and used public addressing systems to educate voters, particularly the first timers, about the importance of voting, which is an integral part of the nation’s democratic process.

Advocating that people should not vote under the influence of bribe and liquor, the Faridkot EC office is sending awareness vans in rural areas and towns to educate the voters.

The vans issue appeals to voters “Chuno Sarkar, tuhade hath dor hai, sarean di vote vich eko jeha zor hai” (Chose government, every vote carries equal strength) and “Meri Vote, Meri Taakat” (my vote is my strength). The audio tapes in these vans seek to tell voters that the right to vote was a hard-earned right, which was bagged after thousands of sacrifices, so selling your vote for liquor or bribe was tantamount to turning traitor.

Faridkot SDM Paramdeep Singh, while flagging off one of these awareness vans at Guru Gobind Singh Medical College here on Saturday, said these vans were educating voters about the use of Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), the machines being used for voting in the district. VVPAT is an independent verification system for voting machines, designed to allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to provide a means to audit the stored electronic results.

Stating that both giving and taking bribe were equally punishable, he said the administration wanted to tell voters that by selling their vote, they hurt their rights. They should vote after analyzing the performance and credentials of each candidate, the SDM said.

The campaign would dispel the present state of disenchantment among voters. “We want to achieve the target of 100 per cent polling this time”, the SDM added.