Utilise Gram Sabhas for voter’s awareness: CEO

Shimla, Sept 27 – Gram Sabhas are the appropriate platform for creating awareness amongst the voters and all the Deputy Commissioners who are also the District Election Officers (DEOs) should effectively utilise this opportunity for propagating Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) related activities and messages under ‘UTSAV- Celebrating Democracy’ programme of State Election department.

This was stated by Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Maneesh Garg while presiding over the virtual meeting with all the DEOs here today.

The Gram Sabha is scheduled to be held on 2^nd October 2022 and this platform should be used to motivate, inform and facilitate all the eligible citizens to enroll themselves and participate in the electoral process in festive spirit, said CEO.

The DEOs should depute the Booth Level Officers (BLOs), Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), Assistant Electoral Returning Officers (AEROs) and other senior officers for attending gram sabha meetings, the agenda of which was unveiled by the Election Commission of India (ECI) during their recent visit to the State. While referring to the agenda, he said that special focus should be laid on inclusion of the eligible voters, especially the young voters in the age group of 18-21 years in the electoral process, who due to some reason have not yet been enrolled. He stressed the need for effective and active supervision by the DEOs to make electoral rolls error free.

Shri Garg said that people willing to link their Aadhaar numbers with the electoral rolls should be encouraged to fill Form-6B, which is purely on a voluntary basis. Besides, he also urged the panchayat members to co-operate in verification of the photo electoral rolls.