Lukewarm response for beach race

With only three days left for the parliamentary election, the district administration is striving hard to create voters awareness and ensure a high voters turnout in Dakshina Kannada district.

It carried out a spree of voters awareness activities at Panambur beach on Sunday evening, amidst the lukewarm response from the general public towards the event.

Beginning from a beach race, to sculpture making contest, to staging street play, to showering of pamphlets from Cessna aircraft, all efforts were made to draw the attention of people and pass on a message to them to vote without fail on April 17.

The programmes were organised as a part of Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP). Though there were thousands of tourists and visitors at the beach, all seemed to be busy enjoying the water, the sunset and the evening, than getting themselves involved in the SVEEP activities.

Not more than 25 people, including children, participated in the race, after the officials requested them to turn up. The participants had to cover a distance of 750 metres on the shore, to reach the destination.

Six individuals namely, Somaraj from Gangavati, Anand from Bellare, Farooq from Kolkatta, Sobur from West Bengal, Balasubramanya from Kasargod and Rafia from Surathkal were handed over the prizes for winning the race.

On the one corner were two teams engrossed in shaping sand sculpture to raise voter awareness. Mangalore based Team Tribal sculpted the parliament with a ballot box on the top, inviting people to vote.

Prasad, a staff from NIT-K sculpted the sculpture of a man thinking on choosing the right candidate to vote. Only two teams participated in the sculpture making contest.

Beedi Nataka Kala Jatha team staged a play on election as the theme. Meanwhile, the much awaited Cessna aircraft came flying and dropping pamphlets, again on the significance of voting. It was yet again a futile attempt, as all the four times the aircraft flew throwing pamphlets the paper pieces did not fall on the beach. 

Reasons for not voting

Earlier, speaking to reporters, MCC Commissioner and Nodal Officer for Election Expenditure Ajith Kumar Hegde said that the district administration had carried out a survey by visiting every house where people had not voted in the previous election. The survey report said that the voters did not exercise their franchise due to ‘busy schedule.’ 

Health issues, lack of transport facilities, lack of awareness on voting too are the reasons for not voting. “We request the voters to spend at least half an hour on April 17, to exercise their franchise,” he said.

Superintendent of Police Sharanappa flagged off the race. Deputy Commissioner and Returning Officer A B Ibrahim, ZP CEO and SVEEP Chairperson Tulasi Maddineni were present.