Former Indian cricket captain and sports icon Rahul Dravid will urge the people of Karnataka to vote in the state assembly elections on May 12 through awareness campaigns by the Election Commission in a bid to ensure a high turnout, an official said.
“Through 30-second-long video messages that will be shown on television channels and posters and hoardings that will be put up across the state, Dravid will encourage more people to vote for the state assembly polls,” an official from the state election commission said in Bengaluru.
Campaign posters which read “Play fair, make democracy win. Let’s say yes to ethical elections”, “Cast your vote, make democracy win” and a few other slogans in English and Kannada were released yesterday by the Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar.
“With nearly 15, 42,000 first-time voters (aged 18-19) registered to cast their vote in the ensuing elections, Dravid, who has an appeal among the youth, can help in bringing them to pool booths,” said the poll panel.
After the EC’s announcement on Tuesday that polling for the 225-member assembly will be held on May 12 and votes counted on May 25, the CEO said the poll panel was placing emphasis on increasing awareness among the people of the state to come to vote.
Through ramps and wheelchair facilities for the disabled and a special drive to register primitive tribes and nomadic tribes from the state, the poll panel hopes to see a higher voter turnout on May 12.
Renowned Kannada film director and lyricist Yograj Bhat is also making an election anthem for the EC, aiming to increase voter turnout and raise awareness on ethical voting. The anthem is yet to be released.
Meanwhile, Karnataka’s ruling Congress complained to the Election Commission against the Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah’s alleged violation of the election code by terming Chief Minister Siddaramaiah “anti-Hindu” on Monday.
“We have brought to the notice of the poll panel and the state’s chief electoral officer that Shah had violated the poll code by accusing Siddaramaiah of being Ahindu (anti-Hindu) instead of being pro-Ahinda,” the party’s state unit vice-president V R Sudarshan said.
Ahinda is a Kannada acronym for the socio-political movement Siddaramaiah launched in 2006 for the betterment of minorities, backward classes and Dalits, after he quit the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S). Later he joined the Congress.
“Shah had stated at Shivamogga on March 26 that he (Siddaramaiah) should look at how the Karnataka government is dividing Hindus and Lingayats, let alone other religions. In reality, he is not pro-Ahinda but Ahindu,” said Sudarshan.