Haryana families to get invitation letter to cast vote

In a novel initiative aimed at increasing voter turnout in Haryana, the state election commission will send an invitation letter to every family in the state urging them to exercise their franchise in the Lok Sabha polls.

"We want more and more people to come out and cast their vote on the day of polling," Haryana's Chief Electoral Officer Anurag Agarwal said on Wednesday.

Polling for all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana will be held in the sixth phase of the ongoing general elections on May 25, and over 1.98 crore people are eligible to cast their vote.

In the 2019 parliamentary elections, Haryana had witnessed a poll percentage of 70.36.

Agarwal said the invitation to the voters will be like one gets for events like wedding where the hosts write that they shall be eagerly waiting for the guests.

"We are sending an invitation letter to every family along with the voter slip and voter guidelines. We want more and more people to come out and vote," he said.

In the invitation letter, those eagerly waiting for the voters will be booth level officials (BLOs), he said.

"The BLOs will give the voter slips, along with this invitation (in the form of a coloured pamphlet), to every household," he said.

Agarwal told PTI here that 50 lakh such invitation letters will be distributed.

These will be distributed about five to six days before polls so that all families are covered, he said.

The front page of the invite has been designed like a wedding card. Appealing to voters to cast their vote on the day of polling, it mentions in Hindi, 'bhej rahe hai sneh nimantran, matdata tumhe bulane ko, 25 May bhool na jana, vote dalne aane ko'.

Agarwal also said that the target is to achieve a poll percentage of over 75 per cent.

"Besides, we are pasting posters at schools wherein all children are being given a pamphlet to encourage their parents, neighbours to go out and vote. We have come up with a link on our website where the children can later upload their selfies with parents who cast vote," he said.

These initiatives have been planned by the Haryana CEO office, he said, responding to a question.

Agarwal said voter awareness campaigns are also being carried out to increase voter turnout.

On the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), he said through the c-VIGIL mobile app citizens are keeping a close eye on any poll code violations.

"As soon as people receive information about violations of the MCC, they send their complaints to the Election Commission. These complaints are resolved within 100 minutes," he said.

"It is the result of citizens' vigilance that so far 2,423 complaints have been received in Haryana, of which 502 complaints, the highest, are from Sirsa," he said.

Meanwhile, the office of the Haryana CEO has launched an app called 'Voters-in-Queue', through which voters can obtain information about the queue at polling centres from the comfort of their homes and can go to vote as the crowd decreases.

The app's primary advantage is that it will save voters' time by eliminating the need to wait in long queues, he added.

The app will be operational in 30 urban assembly constituencies including Panchkula, Ambala Cantonment, Ambala City, Jagadhri, Yamunanagar, Thanesar, Kaithal, Karnal, Panipat Rural, Panipat Urban, Sonipat, Jind, Fatehabad, Sirsa, Hisar, Bhiwani, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Rewari, Gurugram, Nuh and Palwal.