Corporate sector should contribute in voter education: CEC

Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath today called upon the corporate sector to contribute in voter education and awareness and include such task as part of its corporate social responsibility.
Speaking at a function here to mark National Voter's Day, he said the poll body looks forward to more synergy in future in advancing greater participation of people in the electoral process and the process of participative elections has to be a national mission.
He also called upon officers and staff to rise to the challenge of holding elections to the 16th Lok Sabha this year - the largest exercise in the world undertaken ever by an election management body, where 81 crore electorate in 9 lakh polling stations will exercise their franchise and several lakhs polling personnel will be involved in poll management.

Sampath said during the recent revision of electoral rolls, over 3.90 crore new electors were enrolled in the past few months and around 1.27 crore of these are newly eligible voters of 18-19 year age group.
"The Commission feels that a much higher level of contribution in the field of voter education and awareness is due from the vibrant and resourceful corporate sector of the country. I call upon them to include this under Corporate Social Responsibility of the Companies Act.
"We look forward to more synergy in future in advancing greater participation of people in the electoral process. Reinforcing Indian democracy through the process of participative elections cannot be a task for ECI alone. It has got to become a national mission," he said.

He said the Voter's Day is celebrated on the day when Election Commission of India was founded 64 years ago. The Commission, he added, is dedicated to the task of delivering free, fair and credible elections to the Indian people and has so far conducted 15 general elections to Lok Sabha and 348 elections to Legislative Assemblies of states and Union Territories.

He said while all steps are to be taken to make sure that elections are held in time, these are peaceful and that electors are able to vote freely and fearlessly, but democracy requires more than a technically correct election.

"The essence of representativeness lies in participation. To make our democracy meaningful, there has to be maximum participation of the people in the electoral process.
"Our endeavour is to ensure that everyone eligible is enrolled and all those enrolled should vote in the elections, voluntarily. Besides, the participation of citizens in elections needs to be informed and ethical for a healthy democracy," he said.