SHILLONG: The Additional Chief Electoral Officer B Dhar has expressed confidence that the office of the CEO will be able to increase the voting percentage in the forthcoming Lok Sabha election.
Reacting to query of a listeners at a programme of All India Radio, B Dhar said that the CEO office has taken several measures under systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) to educate voters on the importance of voting.
He stated that the voting turnout is always higher in Assembly election than Lok Sabha election since contestants in MLA elections reach out to the voters by way of extensive campaigning whereas MP candidates do not reach out to voters as they have to campaign in a large area.
It may be mentioned that the voting percentage in the last Lok Sabha election was around 64 percent but however B Dhar was happy with the fact that voting percentage in the 2009 LS election was higher than the 2003 LS election.
The State Election Department has targeted at least 75 percent voting in the upcoming election.
According to Dhar, the Election department has also raised the number of polling stations from 2117 in 2009 to 2562 polling stations.
Earlier, people in rural areas had to travel up to 6 kilometers to reach a polling station but Dhar claims that now voters will have to travel maximum 3 kilometers to reach a polling station to cast vote.
