AP High Court tells Election Commission to educate voters

By S A Ishaqui

Hyderabad, March 24 :The AP High Court on Tuesday suggested the Election Commission to takeup an awareness campaign to educate voters about the importance of vote.

Dealing with a petition filed by Dr G Harikishan Goud, president of the Society for Social Awareness, a division bench comprising Justice V Eswaraiah and Justice P V Sanjay Kumar, observed that " the EC plays akey role in this regard, at least do this time to educate poor illiterate voters in exercising their ballots, so that they can elect a right person".

Justice Eswaraiah said, "Don't we need good governance and good leaders.Who else would educate the voters except the EC. Lack of awareness on the value of vote is the root cause for the sorry state of affairs of the present political system."

The bench told the EC to use the media to educate the voters. It asked theEC to involve all political parties in the campaign.The court asked the EC's counsel, Mr T Niranjan Reddy to apprise the bench on the steps initiated by the EC so far to educate the voters.
Mr Reddy said he will file an affidavit on the issue. He told the court since the introduction of model code there were lot of changes in conducting the elections. Mr Reddy said that the EC has been effectively implementing the code, it will not spare anyone breaching the code.

The court asked the counsel to initiate the steps to educate the voters,otherwise it will pass an order in this regard.

Mr Niranjan Reddy told thecourt that he would get back on Monday with all information.

However , the petitioner urged the court to direct the state government to take up a campaign to create awareness among the voters.