Election Commission to rope in actors, cricketer for campaign

CHENNAI: When you visit a movie theatre in Tamil Nadu in the coming days, you will be treated to a popular actor, director, singer and even a cricket player asking you to exercise your franchise. But the message will come with an important advisory. Actors Vijay Sethupathi and Vijay Antony will advise you not to accept bribes for your votes from any political party. They will also inform you about the documents you have to carry with you to a booth on

polling day

.


With Lok Sabha elections around the corner, the Election Commission is educating voters on various rules of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 as well as the conduct of election rules.

For instance, the EC has used a scene from the Tamil film 'Sarkar' to educate voters on their power under section 49P of the Conduct of Election Rules 1961. Sec 49(P) of the Constitution gives the right to a person, who's voting right has been challenged. Section 49O (NOTA- None of the above) is already an option for voters.

In the past elections too, the state election department roped in actors like Surya, Karthik, Vivek and squash player Deepika Palikal, cricket players Dinesh Karthik and Ashwin.

"In a week's time, we will start the campaign in all movie theatres. Besides theatres, we will target malls in all the cities, bus stations, metro stations in Chennai city and markets," chief electoral officer Satyabrata Sahoo told TOI.

Reacting to the EC using the Sarkar scene, movie director A R Murugadoss tweeted: "Glad, election commission is bringing awareness on #49p #Sarkar." Similarly, the Election Commission has taken steps to campaign in colleges to woo first time voters to register their names in the electoral roll.

The campaign will also educate voters on the VVPAT (Voter verifiable paper audit trail), a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballot-less voting system. "This is the first election in which VVPAT will be used in all polling booths. We have banners showing the VVPAT machine near the EVMs and we'll also explain about the machine," said Sahoo. The voter campaign will also be telecast in television channels as well as on radio channels.