Bengaluru: Citizen’s group calls for informed voting practices, distributes pamphlets to raise awareness

First-time voter Pooja said, “Voting is the easiest and safest way of participating in a democracy.”

Vinay Kumar, an engineer and activist, said: “This campaign is trying to urge people to vote and vote wisely. We have accumulated news articles regarding the performance of the government in the past five years and we have also included the manifestos of all political parties as well as affidavits of candidates on our website. We want to talk to people on the street and use a dummy ballot machine as an icebreaker. A lot of people think that politics is a dirty thing… our responsibility does not end with only voting.”

Explaining the origin of the initiative, he said: “We are a group of friends but what brought us together was primarily Covid-19, when we were volunteering to help people, and there was chaos all over the country… when the election was announced we decided we should be responsible citizens and do our bit.”

A pamphlet distributed by the crowd-funded initiative carried various headlines relating to current issues involving the government, from the ‘rise’ in crimes against women to the seizure of Rs 8 crore from the home of BJP MLA Madal Virupakshappa’s son.

A QR code on the pamphlet leads to the website set up by the initiative. As of Saturday, the group has distributed about 90,000 pamphlets across 48 districts in Karnataka. It has set a target of distributing 200,000 pamphlets in total.