Road shows to educate voters

Bangalore, Apr 14 (ANI): With an aim to educate the masses about various candidates and political parties in the election fray, a voluntary forum in Bangalore is hosting numerous road shows across the country apart from uploading educative information on its website.nsite Digital's indiavoting.com is India's most comprehensive site on politics and elections.

It launched its voter outreach programme ahead of the general elections with a series of innovative online and grassroots initiatives targeted at young voters.

This novel venture, named the 'Vote Yatra' was launched to an encouraging response.

It is a grass route programme with multiple vans that use cartoons, spot quizzes, magic shows and mobile information for the awareness of voters with a touch of fun and entertainment.

According to Amit Tripathi, Managing Director of Insite Digital, the purpose of the campaign is to inform the people to vote according to their conscience rather than getting carried away by the politicians from various political parties.

"Everyone is aware of their voting rights and many NGOs and corporates are promoting it. But the biggest issue is that people are not sure whom to vote and for what reasons to vote. Because of this, we have made this campaign where we are doing various road shows. The key component of these shows will be a magician who will also travel with us. He will be doing a simple activity of telling people through magic the message that 'Everything is fake. Don't get carried away. Take right decisions and vote the right person' and be wise in voting," said Tripathi.

The programme will conduct more than 500 road shows. It aims to reach over a million voters in more than 150 constituencies during its journey across India.

In southern India, the journey started from Hyderabad. A van with volunteers and a magician are meeting people at the roadside corners of various neighbourhoods in the city.

Through magic they gather the commoners and not only encourage them to go for voting but also tell them not to be influenced by politicians' rhetoric promises.

"Right now, we are showing a rope game to show what politicians are before elections and after the votes how they are. We show it through magic and at the same time through the colour changing concepts," said Uday Kumar, a magician.

A song titled 'Mat Socho' in nine languages is played as a part of the campaign.

The lyrics urge the youth to let go off passions such as gossiping and watching movies on the contrary exercise their electoral franchise.

The journey will end at Delhi in the mid of May with the completion of Lok Sabha elections. By Jaipal Sharma (ANI)