Civic body launches online sessions to create poll awareness

CHENNAI: More than 64,000 first time voters has enrolled their names in the final electoral roll released by the Greater Chennai Corporation. The civic body has started to conduct online sessions to create election awareness among college students.

“Chennai Corporation takes the online route to reach out to young voters across colleges on ethical and informed elections in what we call ‘OPEN’ (Online Participation of Electoral Network) sessions,” Meghanath Reddy, Chennai Corporation Deputy Commissioner (Revenue and Finance), tweeted.

An official said that the online sessions are part of the awareness program usually conducted during the elections. “Due to the pandemic, physical events could not be conducted. The online sessions will cover all the major colleges in the city,” the official added.

It may be noted that as many as 64,152 first-time voters, which is 327 per cent higher than the previous year, has been added to the voters’ list. The newly added young voters are eligible to cast their votes in the upcoming election for the State assembly.

There were only 15,002 first-time voters in the draft electoral roll released in November 2020. Also, the final electoral roll released in February 2020 had only 19,686 first-time voters. In 2019, as many as 43,829 firsttime voters had enrolled their names in the electoral roll and in 2018, as many as 35,194 first-time voters had enrolled.