FGG launches voter awareness drive ahead of Jubilee Hills by-poll

Hyderabad: Retired IAS officer RV Chandravadan on Thursday said the voter awareness campaign taken up by Forum for Good Governance (FGG) was appreciable. At a time when political parties have developed a system to defraud the elections, enlightened voter is the only protection for proper elections and good democracy.

The Forum for Good Governance is ready to extend its helping hand to election authorities in systematic conduct of election. He was speaking in a voter awareness programme in the wake of by-poll to Jubilee Hills Assembly constituency organised by Forum for Good Governance at Press Club, Somajiguda. Chandravadan said that elections for bureaucracy was a regular part of their duty, whereas for politicians it is life and death issue.

Earlier, FGG president M Padmanabha Reddy initiating the discussions stated that since 1950 people have voted 18 times to elect members of Parliament and members of Assemblies.

People have also voted for local bodies, Co-operative Societies, but many of them do not know why and for what purpose they are voting. Religion, caste, money are playing a major role in elections.

The parties in power are using all their power at their command to win the voters. While coming to participation of voters, in rural areas the polling percentage is close to 80 per cent while in urban areas it is less and glaring example is Jubilee Hills where the percentage is just 47 per cent. He said to improve polling percentage and to vote for a good candidate. Forum for Good Governance has organised the voter awareness programme.

Speaking on the occasion former State Election Commission, V Nagi Reddy said that there was a feeling in the voters that ‘what if I don’t vote, my single vote will not affect the result’.

This feeling should go, every vote is important he said. If a voter sells his vote he will lose the right to question the MLA for any noncompliance of work, he added. In countries like the UK there are 500 MPs for a population of seven crores, where as in India for 140 crore population there are only 540 MPs with the result the elected MP is not able to concentrate on local issues.

Retired IAS MV Reddy said that the voter should take oath not to succumb to the money and liquor offered by the political parties. The rich people of Jubilee Hills are not casting their vote. For every 800 voters there is a polling booth, as such it doesn’t take much time to go to booth and exercise his franchise.

Retired IPS officer S Gopal Reddy said that Election Commission had put a ceiling of Rs 40 lakh towards election expenses per candidate, but in practice the candidates were spending much more than what is prescribed. As a citizen it is the important duty to caste vote and vote for good candidate, he added.