Kurukshetra:Prof. Pradeep Chauhan ,IIHS, Kurukshetra University , Kurkshetra , Director of Research Project , funded and sponsored by Election Commission of India, handed over a copy of its report today to the Vice Chancellor of Kurukshetra University ,Kurukshetra Prof. Som Nath Sachdeva.
The report has been also been submitted to Chief Electoral Office of Haryana at Chandigarh yesterday. The extensive survey of voters with 24 pages questionnaire was conducted all over the State of Haryana by a team of more than 50 surveyors, investigators and researchers of Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra. This survey was conducted about the Lok Sabha Elections 2019 to find out the Knowledge, Attitude, Belief, Behavior and Practices among the electorates in elections in the State of Haryana. Prof. Som Nath Sachdeva, Vice Chancellor Congratulated Prof. Chauhan and his team for this report , which is a matter of pride for Kurukshetra University, which was selected to do this survey after stiff completion.
Prof. Chauhan led the team of experts and collected valuable data from 40074 households and 30 Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) from the all over the 90 assembly constituencies of the State. The study of voters behavior has focused to look in to the exposure to SVEEP ( Sweep Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation) End line survey, voters behavioral pattern as per age, gender and other categories, to assess the campaign for voters awareness and education, to analyze the performance of the electoral machinery, gaps in information on electoral enrolment services, awareness and attitude, role of print, social and electronic media and to understand how social groups affect voters behavior and participation.
Prof. Chauhan said that this report will be a guiding principle for Election Commission of India.We have also given recommendations on the basis of this empirical study. The recommendations were like voter registration should be done efficiently and correctly, voter list should be updated on regular intervals, BLOs and and Supervisor should be vigilant enough during the EPIC collection process to avoid mistakes, educated experienced and technically sound persons should be engaged as data entry operators, election commission should trust the responsibility of issue and corrections of EPIC to Sahaj Jana Seva Kendra, remuneration of BLOs and supervisors should be enhanced, separate queues for PWD‘s ,senior citizens , lactating /pregnant women should be made, drinking water facility should be provided on all booths the electorates of one household should be listed in one polling booth, awareness should be created among the people to enroll the names of their unmarried daughters who have attain the age of 18 years of age and transportation arrangement should be made for senior citizen voters who were unable to move.
How the voters should be motivated to vote to increase the voting percentage ? What are the factors which affect the voters to vote? All the measures were suggested in this report after discussing with a huge number of voters from different sections. Besides this, many long-term measures were recommended like campaigns should be based on innovation and intervention to improve the effectiveness of campaigns as the systemization is the key. Professor Chauhan said that this survey report has created a great interest of the Election Commission and going to improve the voting behavior, voting percentages and participation of the voters not only in the State of Haryana but also all over the country.