Meghalaya Polls: ECI’s Voter Awareness Drive with Special Music Video by Visually Impaired Band

In Meghalaya, music has found its way into election season as well. With the help of a visually impaired band, the Election Commission of India has made a special music video to raise voter education and awareness among 21,75,000-strong electorate spread across 3,482 polling stations in 12 districts of the state.

With just eight days to go for voting day – February 27 – the office of the chief electoral officer is using music to urge voters to come to their nearest polling booth and to exercise their franchise and to “love your state, love your voice and love your vote” because “your right is your might” and “your voice is your choice”.

Light After Dark – the state’s first band with visually impaired musicians and the champions of the state’s ‘Disability Icon’ award – are taking the cause of electoral participation among people with disabilities to ensure that “no voter is left behind”.

State election icons – leading band Summersalt and assorted leading artistes from both Khasi, Jaintia and Garo Hills – are trying to enthuse and urge voters through their music.

The foot-tapping music video is anchored by Meghalaya’s CEO office and all effort is going into ensuring that voter categories like senior citizens aged above 80 and PWDs are facilitated by polling teams, who are trekking across the difficult terrain to arrange for a smooth voting process.

Through the ‘Mission 300’ campaign, five polling stations across 60 assembly constituencies have been identified in a bid to improve the voting turnout this time so that it reaches 90 percent and above 86.9 percent recorded in the 2018 assembly elections – compared to other states, this is fairly robust.

“Elections are the greatest festival of democracy. Music is the best way to motivate and engage citizens to take part in this grand festival, particularly in Meghalaya, where music is in the DNA of every citizen and a way of life as well as a part and parcel of all significant events. We want voter turnout to cross 90% this time,” Meghalaya CEO FR Kharkongor told News18.

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