The BBMP is going the extra mile to woo young first-time voters to register.
Story so far: The BBMP has initiated an awareness drive in the city to address the dismally low numbers of first-time voter registration. The Palike will target college students through a door-to-door enrollment campaign. Only 54,000 first-time voters registered at the polling booths this year, far below the Palike’s expectation of enrolling 1 lakh new voters.
- The civic body is employing data from the Department of Collegiate Education to kickstart the campaign. The Palike is setting up electoral literacy clubs and appointing campus ambassadors to motivate the students to enrol.
- The BBMP has empowered 3,000 booth-level officials to conduct door-to-door registration. The officials will visit each house to encourage the youth to vote in areas with no registrations.
Positive results: The BBMP’s campaign has delivered in its first week. In the last 20 days, around 30,000 new voters registered themselves. The Palike aims to enrol 25,000 more by the first week of March.