Maha electoral office being cautious in picking personalities

The Maharashtra Electoral Office is being cautious in selecting personalities as brand ambassadors for the polls after two such faces joined a political party recently, an official said Wednesday.

The electoral office does not want any actor with any political affiliation to be chosen as the brand ambassador as it wants to maintain neutrality.

The electoral office had earlier roped in Marathi actors Aakash Thosar and Rinku Rajguru as the brand ambassadors to commemorate the National Voters Day on January 25 in a bid to attract youngsters to register themselves as voters.

Thosar and Rajguru, famously known as "Parsha" and "Archie" after the characters they had played in blockbuster Marathi movie "Sairat", recently joined the Mahrashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).

"The Election Commission has to maintain its neutrality and hence we have to choose well known faces carefully," said the official from the office of the Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer.

The official said the electoral office is looking forward to rope in sportspersons to attract youngsters to enroll themselves as voters for the ongoing special summary revision of the electoral rolls.

"Earlier, we worked with actor Mrinal Kulkarni, scientist Anil Kakodkar, social worker Prakash Amte, eye specialist T P Lahane," he said.

The special summary revision began on September 1 this year and will continue till October 31. The rolls will be published in January 2019.

The Lok Sabha polls as also the Maharashtra Assembly polls are due next year.

Maharashtra has added more than 13.6 lakh voters since the 2014 assembly elections, taking the total to nearly 8.49 crore.

The rise in voter count was reflected in the latest revision of electoral rolls in Maharashtra, the second most populous state in the country.

Post the revision which was done in February this year, the total voter count stood at 8,48,96,357 in Maharashtra.