‘Mission Unite’ to enroll 1 lakh young voters in July

SHILLONG: The State Election Department will launch a statewide campaign to enroll more than 1 lakh voters, especially the first timers between the age group of 18 and 21 years.
Speaking to media persons here on Tuesday after a meeting with several political parties, Chief Electoral Officer Frederick R. Kharkongor said the ‘Mission Unite Campaign’ will be launched on July 1 and it will conclude on July 31.
The campaign will be simultaneously launched in all the 11 districts. “The Election Commission has put July 8 and 22 for the special enrolment drive,” Kharkongor said.
The Chief Electoral Officer will tie up with 110 schools and colleges within Shillong city since the objective of the campaign is to target first-time voters between the age group of 18 and 21 years.
The enrolment will take place on school and college campuses to ensure that there is no inconvenience to students, he said.
To facilitate the enrolment of youths, the State Election Department has distributed about 11,000 voters’ enrolment forms in various schools and it will also ensure that disposal of claims are done within the campus.
Meanwhile, Kharkongor said the department is concerned about those youths in the age group of 18 to 21 who are not in school or college.
In East Khasi Hills alone, he said there are about 52,000 voters left out, which is a significant number for a single district.
“Among the constituencies in East Khasi Hills which has the highest gap is Nongkrem which is around 15,000. The rest of the constituencies have deficit ranging from 6,000 to 20,000 and 1000,” he said.
The Chief Electoral Officer further informed that the matter has been discussed with the Deputy Commissioner of East Khasi Hills to find out a mechanism to bridge this gap, especially when the forthcoming Assembly polls in the State are round the corner.
“In fact, the Deputy Commissioner had constituted a team to find out the deficit polling stations in Nongkrem constituency. We will 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 in the recently concluded summary revision, there is a 3.38 per cent increase in new voters in the electoral rolls and a large number of them are youths.
According to Kharkongor, from amongst the electoral population of 17,19,000, about 10 lakh belong to the age group of 18 to 39.  He further informed that they also discussed with the political parties on the issue of Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) or verifiable paper record (VPR) and added that the Election Commission will arrange the VVPAT system for the State.
“We will get the details as in how many constituencies the ECI will introduce the VVPAT,” he added.