PATNA: A recent survey commissioned by the office of Bihar’s chief electoral officer (CEO) reveals that almost 80% people feel taking money or gifts to vote for someone is not wrong.

Taking this as a challenge, the election department in Bihar has undertaken a niche campaign to promote ethical voting in the assembly elections besides improving overall voting percentage.

“It is a challenge. Our focus is to tell the electors not just to exercise their franchise, but to vote without being lured by any promise or gratification,” Bihar’s additional CEO R Lakshmanan told TOI. Several posters and banners have been put up by the election department in this regard, besides issuing adverts in print media and jingles on the radio.

COMPLETE COVERAGE: Bihar assembly polls

The survey commissioned by the CEO office to assess voting behaviour was conducted by Chandragupt Institute of Management, Patna (CIMP) in June-July 2015. “It is a standard practice to find out the voting pattern and voters’ behaviour so that we can use the findings as inputs to improve our voter awareness activities,” the ACEO said.

READ ALSO:

Nitish Kumar is too arrogant, I can’t trust him, PM Narendra Modi says at Bihar rally

Bihar elections: Meet the key poll players

A sample of 4,500-odd voters had been selected and to maintain a balance, voters from high and low turnout districts were chosen in equal numbers. “Even within the districts, we ensured that the sample included voters from both high and low turnout booths,” Lakshmanan said.

The overall voting percentage in Bihar was 52.67% in the November 2010 assembly polls, while it was slightly up at 56.28% in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

READ ALSO:

Lalu Prasad, Amit Shah booked for barbs at each other

The survey report suggested that the main reason behind low turnout in 2010 was that they were away from the constituency on the day of voting. “Incidentally, this election is around festivals and we hope that people will be back to their villages around the polling date,” Lakshmanan said.

Another factor which led to a low voting turnout was that people were discouraged by long queues, Lakshmanan said and added, “This time, we have distributed booth slips among the voters with an ‘appeal’ which says that the morning and afternoon hours usually don’t have long queues. The appeal on behalf of district electoral officer (DEO) cum DMs will also tell the voters about the facilities at the polling booths.”

