SHIMLA: Thanks to Mission-277 campaign launched by State Election Department for Vidhan Sabha Elections-2022, Himachal Pradesh logged 6 per cent increase in the targeted 277 polling stations, which had witnessed low voter participation earlier".
Chief Electoral Officer Maneesh Garg said that the state witnessed six percent increase in the polls in 277 polling station partly due to the mission-277 campaign launched under UTSAV (Universal Transparent election through Systemic Awareness of Voters) and SVEEP activities.
He said they identified the low turnout polling stations and did a detailed analysis to find out reasons for low voting.
Some of the reasons that emerged were the migratory population, boycott owing to local issues, youth, urban apathy and, voter apathy, especially among central government employees belonging to other states, Garg said. "Besides, there were electors working in other states, some face adverse weather conditions, wedding season and harvesting season during the elections".
CEO took these measures into considerations and launched an array of targeted interventions, including awareness programmes, regular meetings at various levels, personal visits of District Election Officers/Returning Officers/ Senior officers/Block level officers, pro-active election literacy clubs, chunav pathshala activities, interventions by booth awareness groups and mass mobilization activities.
"The State Election Department targeted 277 such polling stations under its campaign ' Mission -277'. There has been a significant improvement in the voter turnout in these 277 polling stations", said Garg.
S.No. | Name of the District | No. of Polling Stations in the District falling under Mission 277 | Voters' Turn out in these polling Stations during VSE-2017 | Voters' turnout in these polling stations during VSE-2022 | Increase in Voters' Turnout |
1 | Chamba | 31 | 48.02 | 61.15 | 13.13 |
2 | Kangra | 54 | 55.62 | 61 | 5.38 |
3 | Lahaul & Spiti | 6 | 56.88 | 62.96 | 6.08 |
4 | Kullu | 12 | 58.86 | 61.76 | 2.90 |
5 | Mandi | 35 | 50.11 | 62.44 | 12.33 |
6 | Hamirpur | 19 | 56.55 | 66.31 | 9.77 |
7 | Una | 2 | 60.09 | 65.17 | 5.08 |
8 | Bilaspur | 4 | 51.24 | 65.64 | 14.40 |
9 | Solan | 32 | 55.78 | 55.84 | 0.06 |
10 | Sirmour | 4 | 55.02 | 58.36 | 3.34 |
11 | Shimla | 75 | 54.89 | 59.39 | 4.50 |
12 | Kinnaur | 3 | 56.02 | 36.50 | 0.48 |
He said that voter turnout considerably increased in the targeted polling stations.
As many as 198 polling stations out of 277 registered higher voter participation, while 57 polling stations registered more than 10 per cent increase.
10 other polling stations registered 20 per cent increase. Similarly, two polling stations registered more than 30 per cent increase and two polling stations witnessed improvement of 40 percent, while four polling stations came up by 50 per cent increase.
An overall 6 per cent increase was registered in these 277 polling stations.
