Instead, the existing Voter Awareness Forum initiative, which was launched in 2019, would be used to spread awareness in organisations that employ more than 500 workers, a top ECI source said.
The MoUs in Gujarat, which were signed by the office of the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) P Bharathi ahead of the December 2022 Assembly elections, were meant to track the electoral participation of the workforce.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) will not replicate in the Northeastern states going to polls this month its initiative in Gujarat last December, where it signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with workplaces to determine whether employees who take leave on election day actually cast their votes.
In fact, senior ECI officials said there were no plans to enter into such MoUs with workplaces in any state going forward.
Assembly elections will be held in Tripura on February 16, and in Meghalaya and Nagaland on February 27. The ECI special officer for Systematic Voter’s Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP), Dr Ranbir Singh, told The Indian Express that the Commission would not be entering into MoUs with “individual units” in states.
Instead, the existing Voter Awareness Forum initiative, which was launched in 2019, would be used to spread awareness in organisations that employ more than 500 workers, a top ECI source said.
The MoUs in Gujarat, which were signed by the office of the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) P Bharathi ahead of the December 2022 Assembly elections, were meant to track the electoral participation of the workforce.
The CEO had told The Indian Express in October that 233 MoUs representing workers from 1,017 industrial units had been signed with the units, and with industry bodies.
However, in reply to a question asked by The Indian Express under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Gujarat CEO’s office had said on January 12 this year that “Total 19 MoUs were signed by office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Gujarat State to encourage the electoral participation.”
In response to a question on how many workers were covered by the MoUs, how many had availed leave for the Assembly elections, and how many had voted, the RTI reply from the CEO’s office stated: “No such information is available with this office.”
Subsequently, CEO Bharathi could not be reached for a comment.
The Gujarat initiative came after the ECI directed all government departments, public sector undertakings, and all corporate entities with more than 500 workers across the country to keep track of how many voters were taking leave but not actually voting.
In a press release issued on June 7, 2022, the ECI had said: “In order to address voting apathy in urban areas, the Commission decided to undertake focused awareness activities in this respect… All Central/ State Government Departments/CPSUs/State PSUs and corporate entities with 500 plus employees shall appoint a nodal officer to ascertain leave availing but non-voting employees.”
The release said that a special voter awareness drive would be organised for “such non-voting members”.
The decision to sign MoUs with industrial units to track workers in this manner was criticised by some leaders. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury wrote to the ECI against the “coercive step towards compulsory voting”, and asked for the decision to be withdrawn.
Source: The Indian Express
