Excelsior Correspondent
LEH, Nov 4: The district administration has taken a first of its kind initiative under the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation Plan (SVEEP) by targeting the Army personnel, who vote through postal ballots in the elections to the Parliament or the State Legislature.
Under this initiative, district administration is training the Army officers and jawans regarding the correct procedure of voting by postal ballots.
Speaking to media persons, DC Leh Simrandeep Singh said that during the recently held Lok Sabha elections a total of nearly 5000 postal ballots were sent to the soldiers of Ladakh Scouts, who mainly constitute the service voters of Ladakh region.
Out of this, nearly 2000 votes were received for counting and out of these 2000 received votes, 55 percent votes (nearly 1100) got rejected due to technical errorscommitted by the soldiers or officers in signing or attesting the declaration (Form 13A), enclosed with the vote.
Some of the common errors committed by Service voters included leaving the ballot paper blank, attesting officer or the service voter not signing the declaration etc. “For a less populated region like Ladakh, even 5000 votes are very critical and, therefore, the administration decided to reach out to these soldiers in their respective regiments and educate them about the correct procedure of voting”, the DB said, adding “the aim is to ensure minimum rejection of votes of soldiers due to technical errors”.
Later, first of such training sessions was conducted by the DC and the SVEEP team of Leh district in the Ladakh Scouts Regimental Centre and a regiment of Ladakh Scouts in Leh. The Army has appreciated the initiative of Leh administration in making them aware about the voting procedures and the soldiers attending the training session pledged to not only vote in the coming Assembly elections but also to vote as per the correct procedure so that their vote makes a difference in the elections.
The DC brought out that administration is willing to reach out to these soldiers even if they are at remote locations like Siachen or at borders as the opportunity of voting comes only once in six years and unless the soldiers vote, their voice would not be heard.
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