EC focusing on enrolling women, first-time voters

Kolkata, Sep 7: The Election Commission is now focusing on increasing enrolment of women voters and that of first-timers in the 18-19 years age group.

Under the systematic voters' educational and electoral participation program, strategies have been developed to increase enrolment of women electors and persons belonging to 18-19 years age cohorts in the electoral rolls, Election Commission officials said.

Special emphasis has been laid on inclusion of differently-abled persons including people from marginalised sections, they said.

A drawing competition is being organised among students of 15-17 years on September 13 in many districts of the state.

A 100 per cent inclusion of all eligible students studying in educational institutes continues to be an objective of the Commission in the state, the officials said.

According to the draft electoral roll published today, West Bengal has 6.55 crore electors out of which 3.38 crore are male and a tiny number of 753 transgenders. The final electoral rolls will be published on January 5.

PTI