Mysuru:  A taluk-level Election Literacy Competitions (ELCs) for PU College students, organised by Department of PU Education as per the orders from Election Commission of India (ECI), was held at Maharaja’s PU College in city this morning.

ECI is conducting this competition at taluk, district, division and State-level across the country in different phases as part of the Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme with main intention to sensitise youths on voting process.

In the first phase today, the taluk-level literacy competition was conducted in all the taluks of Mysuru and other districts. Over 36 PU students from various PU Colleges from across Mysuru taluk took part in the competition conducted on various aspects of Election process to make democracy vibrant in the nation.

Competitions like collage & posters preparation, essay writing and quiz written test were conducted for the students.

Topics for Essay Writing included the following: Voting is my constitutional right, voting is the first step for nation building, qualities expected from contesting candidates, structure and function of ECI, contributions of ECI to democracy, transparent and impartial conduct of elections and should NOTA be my choice.  Participants were supposed to opt for any of the two topics.

Collage and posters preparation contest was conducted on the following themes: No voters to be left behind, informed and ethical voting and accessible elections.     

DDPU inspects

Deputy Director of Pre-University Education (DDPU) Dayananda inspected the process of competitions held in city.

Speaking to press persons after inspection, he said that the best 12 students will be selected from every taluk in the district who will be taking part in the district-level competition.

ECI has given directions to all State Governments to constitute Electoral Literacy Clubs (ELCs) at all educational institutions to educate young voters on importance of voting. Census Data-2011 reveals that there are 30.52 crore children in the age-group of 6-17 years with 22.17 crore in rural and 8.34 crore in urban areas, of which 24.01 crore were enrolled in schools, with 17.14 crore in rural and 6.86 crore in urban schools. “The future voters constitute a sizeable part of India’s democratic polity. Hence, the ECI has been holding such awareness programmes. Moreover, majority of the youths abstaining from voting process has worried ECI,” he added.

District Nodal Officer Dr. Mangalamurthy, Maharaja’s PU College Principal and Taluk Nodal Officer Siddaraju were present.