Scores of students took part in an oath-administering programme, vowing to take active participation in the electoral process and exercise their right to vote without encouraging or being influenced by unethical practices.
Commissioner of Police Manish Kharbikar, Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat CEO and president of SVEEP Committee Dr K N Vijayaprakash, principal of St Agnes College Sr Prem D'Souza, and Dean of Commerce Department and organiser Dr Deviprabha participated in the programme.
Encouraging the students to exercise their vote, Mr Kharbikar said that voting was of importance not only to an individual, but also to the country.
He said that since the average voter-turnout in an election was between 50 and 70 percent, a large portion of the population was still not exercising their vote.
Earlier, over two decades ago, there were a lot of issues during elections in several states in the country such as booth-capturing etc. These problems have been addressed currently, and the major concern of the Election Commission of India now is to make citizens exercise their right to vote and ensure greater voter participation, he said, calling on the youth to cast their votes as responsible citizens of the country without succumbing to any kind of external pressure.
Mr Vijayaprakash said that voting should be seen as one of the duties of a citizen, and called on the students to encourage others to exercise their votes. “Enroll yourselves in the voting list, and bring any unethical practices to the notice of district administration,” he informed, adding that a toll-free number 1077 could be utilised to register complaints on such practices.
Vice-principal of the college Sr Supriya, Child Development Project Officer (CDPO) Shyamala and others were present on the occasion.
Comments
Add new comment