60% participants in ‘Date With Democracy’ were women: Govt

AFTER 272 WARD LEVEL COMPETITIONS, 70 ACROSS ASSEMBLY CONSTITUENCIES AND FIVE AT THE CLUSTER LEVEL, 10 FINALISTS HAVE BEEN CHOSEN

NEW DELHI : At least 60 per cent of around 5,000 people who participated in ‘ Delhi’s date with Democracy’, a talent hunt competition, were women, the Delhi government said on Thursday.

From three-year-olds showing their dancing skills to a 74-year-old man singing songs of love, the competition, launched nearly a month back on March 19, saw people from all walks of life taking part.

After 272 ward level competitions, 70 across all assembly constituencies and five at the cluster level, the Delhi government has chosen its 10 finalists who will perform in the grand finale on Sunday at Central Park in Connaught Place.

The finale, to be held from 6pm onwards, will also have a star performance by noted singer Kailash Kher. The 10 finalists — five singers and dancers each — will also get a chance to perform with Kher. The event is likely to have an audience of 2,000.

“Around 350 competitions were conducted over the past month and we had approximately 5,000 participants. While there were some very unusual suspects, a lot of women performed. The best takeaway was watching women perform without any qualms. Cultural spaces like these are actually very liberating for women,” said Abhinandita Mathur, adviser (art and culture) to minister Manish Sisodia.

However, the mobile phone application that was launched so people could register to partici- pate in the mega event saw a tepid response from Delhiites. Even as data are still being collated by the government, officials of the art and culture department said that not many applications came through the app.

“It was not quite successful as it turned out that people are still not app-savvy. Initially, the plan was to accept registrations only through the app. But, seeing the response, we realised that spot entries was the best way to turn this into a success,” said an official on condition of anonymity.

Coordinators of the competitions said that the event was a crowd puller in the most unexpected places.

“In Greater Kailash, we had an audience of about 200. It was huge as residents of posh colonies generally do not come out for public events held during afternoons and then there were also those from the economically weaker sections,” a coordinator said.