Each vote makes a difference: Naseer Ahmed

KPCC has constituted a panel headed by MLC Naseer Ahmed to ensure that minorities compulsorily register their names in the voters’ list. The Committee President spoke to Shyam Sundar Vattam on the task of creating awareness among minorities.

NT: What is the role of the committee formed under your chairmanship?

The purpose of constituting the committee is to create awareness among the minorities on the need to get registered in the voter’s list. That is important in a democracy. They must also exercise their franchise. They must go in large numbers and vote. That is possible only if their names are found in the voter’s list.

NT: What difference do you see in urban areas and villages?

In cities, there are discrepancies in the voter’s list as they have shifted elsewhere but still, their names exist in the list. The names of the deceased are not deleted from the list. We have found that about 5-6 percent of voters don’t reside in that particular booth but still their names figured in the list. For example, some persons may shift from Shivajinagar to Jayanagar but they don’t get their names deleted in Shivajinagar and include their names in the new location. Some of them will register their names in newly shifted areas but don’t get their names deleted from the old area’s list. Information about the deceased persons are not shared with the authorities concerned. The same names are repeated in two to three places. So all these will reduce the number of minority votes. If there are 1,000 minority voters in a booth, nearly 5-6 per cent votes are lost in this manner. In some places, it is as high as 10 per cent. When the election list is published by the Election Commission of India, there would be a lot of deletions in the list. The deletion of names occurs only after enrolment. When done, booth level officers would be there but booth level agents would not be present. They would check randomly and if they find nobody, they would cancel the names as deleted. This will deny them voting rights.

NT: In such cases, what must those voters do?

Firstly, we need to create awareness about it among the minorities. Whenever they notify the list, people must go and check whether their names are present in the list. If it is not there, then they must enquire why the names are missing.. They must seek details regarding inclusion of names in case their names are removed from the list. For this purpose, the committee has been constituted.

NT: Is your committee aimed at the consolidation of minorities in favour of the Congress Party as the elections are fast approaching?

Consolidation of minorities is going to happen in the coming days. But it is a separate issue. First, they must find eligible voters in the list who can go and vote. If they are ineligible to vote, they cannot exercise their franchise. Because of this, the voting of the minorities would be less than 50 per cent not only in the state but also elsewhere. So we want to educate them on why their names should be in the voter’s list so that they can participate in the democratic process. We want to tell them that their identity lies in voting and being bonafide citizens of the country. That is their identity. First, they must establish that they are citizens of this country and have a right to vote. That is possible only if you have your name in the voter’s list. That awareness has to be created. We want to convince them about the importance of voting. Nearly 1400 years ago, voting was there. It is not something new. It is there even in our religion. There would be two candidates and people must select a better candidate from the two. Some minority voters are not particular about voting as they feel that nothing will change because of their votes. So they don’t go out and vote. In metropolitan cities, the voting percentage among Muslims would be 40 per cent to 50 per cent. But in villages, it is nearly cent per cent. In urban areas, they would take it very easily. So we wanted to create awareness on how important voting is.

NT: Will your panel members visit all 224 Assembly constituencies?

No. We aren’t visiting all constituencies. What we are going to do is to identify the constituencies which have 10%and above minority votes. In each constituency, there will be around 2 lakh voters of which 20,000 will be minority voters. Here we will go and create awareness as it will be difficult to visit all 224 constituencies.

NT: In Karnataka, how many constituencies have more than 10 per cent minority voters?

We are preparing the list. There are about 90 assembly constituencies. We wanted to take up these constituencies and work to bring awareness. The minorities are not aware of their