Update on Voters Registration Drive and Future Plans

By Deepak Tawri

1. Score

  Society Level Direct Submission through our Volunteers :  7000 Forms (approx)
  Society Level Submission due to our awareness drive    :  2000 Forms (approx)
  Corporate Sectors                                                  :  5802 Forms (Form6)
[Corporate sectors got effectively 4 working days to get this done after many hurdles like permission, Notary arrangement, loosing one week due to Diwali etc]

2. Highlights

• Virat Kohlis (really put blood and sweat) :  Dhankawadi Team

          Yatish Devadiga, Yogesh Deshmukh, Padmakar Mithari, Vinesh Deshmukh,
          Rajendra Chavan

• Tendulkars with a Dhoni : PCMC Team

          Sandeep Maske, Rajat Gupta, Jitendra bhagwat, Chetan Kappe, Raghavendra Rao,
          Amol Chandekar, Amit Khandelwal(Dhoni)

• Dravids (one can always depend upon them) : NIBM/Kondwa Team

          Sushilji, Sobhnaji and their Mohalla Committee army, Hari Gandhi

• Sehwags (periodic but good spikes) : 

          Gopal Sharma & Tingre Nagar Team, Indraneel Sadalge, Mihir Janaj

• Yuvraj Singhs (played well even at middle order entry) :

          Arish Rajan, Rakesh Ameta, Anand Vasappanavara, Priya Agarwal, Nandkumar Nair,
          Vikram Nandwani,Pravin Bhande, Abhilasha, Bhushan

• Gary Kirsten (Excellent Coach) : DyDEO Mrs Apporva Wankhede & staff

          And many more not mentioned in order to control email size.

3. Celebration

    Some of us visited EC office today to felicitate DyDEO madam and her staff for the excellent support they gave. A nice plaque by Parivartan (cool idea Indraneel) to madam and roses to 9 of her colleagues were given as token of appreciation.

4. Future Plans

  
a)  EC Continuous Update window will start on 5th of January. That means then onwards citizens can submit form by visiting ERO/EC office personally.

b)  We will have dropbox drive for Corporate sectors and Colleges from 1st of Feb. (Yes, we got permission from DyDEO madam for that today). More on this later.

c)  Corporate sectors drop-box method was unique one and first time in the history of EC (as per DyDEO madam). Professionals from Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai have called us for help to have similar drive there. We will guide them and help to convince EC officers there showing Pune's example.

d)  Need to follow up with State EC IT to fix voters search engine at www.pune.gov.in.  It will be extremely required after 5th of Jan when people want to search their names.

e)  Follow up with National EC for policy change to make registration compulsory by making it prerequisite for driving license, passport etc. Indraneel working on proposal. Please send your suggestions on this at parivartan.bharat@gmail.com

f)  Follow up with IT and Automobile industries associations leaders to make Voting compulsory for their employees or at least attach some incentives/fear to motivate employees to vote. Please come forward if you have contacts.

5. What Next ?

   
    So far whatever little we could do was/is to strengthen "Electoral Democracy."
    Need to start focused effort towards strengthening "Participatory Democracy".
    Mohalla Committee, Mohalla Committee, Mohalla Committee. More on this later.

** Deepak Tawri is an active Parivartan Member who was in continuous touch with Election Commission, Pune one month before the Voter Drive started.
He mainly co-ordinated with all the staff at EC , volunteers in societies, HRs / CEOs of IT companies, replying to thousands of phone calls, emails, etc.
His efforts and active participation inspired many people in Pune and made this Voter Registration Drive a success ...