Jharkhand has adopted an innovative way to increase voter turnout in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, which is scheduled to take place in the peak of summer.

The Hazaribagh district administration on Friday organised an election food festival and cultural extravaganza, which recorded nearly 10,000 footfall.

“Every district has been directed to host innovative programmes to increase awareness among voters which would lead to an increase in voter turnout. We are happy that Hazaibagh volunteered to organise the food festival cum cultural programme which was a success going by the response. Ranchi had also organised an art exhibition recently,” said Jharkhand chief electoral officer K. Ravikumar, who was the chief guest of the festival.

The chief electoral officer also informed that sensing the sizzling heat during May, a directive had been issued to all the district electoral officers to ensure all necessary arrangements at the polling booths for the voters including proper sheds and drinking
water facilities.

Hazaribagh will vote on May 20. In 2019, the parliamentary constituency witnessed a voter turnout of 64.85 per cent while in 2014, it was 63.69 per cent. Both were below the national average of
voter turnout.

“We had hosted the day-long programme under the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme of the Election Commission of India. This was the first such instance in the state wherein a food festival and cultural programme was organised to create awareness among voters,” said Hazaribagh deputy commissioner Nancy Sahay.