A two-day national conference of Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) of nodal officers was organised by the Election Commission on June 10-11 in Gurugram to review the strategy and implementation of outreach programmes, during Lok Sabha Election 2019 and to chalk out the blueprint for the next 5 years.
In the closing session on June 11, while congratulating the SVEEP nodal officers from the 36 states/UTs for historic voter turnout, lowest ever gender gap in participation and systematic efforts for making elections accessible, Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa exhorted the officers to introspect in true spirit on what else could have been done.
He implored all to minutely identify the areas of concern and personally visit low turnout areas for better understanding of reason of low participation there.
“Flagging the gap in registration among the newly eligible 18-19 years old and the participation gap among the 32 per cent of registered populace, Mr Lavasa said that Election Commission shall need to go beyond incremental progress and think of leap frogging for which substantive changes are perhaps needed in many aspect of election management”, the Commission said in a statement.
Mr Lavasa asked the officers to reach out to people outside the election machinery to get new ideas that can be incorporated.
Earlier, Sr. Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha appreciated the innovations taken up at the grassroot level by election officials.
SVEEP nodal officers from across the country gathered to share state experiences, challenges faced, good practices as well as case studies on day 1.
On the second day of the conference, the officers deliberated upon 6 topics viz.critical gaps, accessible elections, youth and gender, electoral literacy clubs, partnerships and volunteering and use of Social Media, and chalked out strategy for the next Phase of SVEEP.
EC conducts camp for officials to prepare blueprint for next five years
