To promote electoral awareness ahead of the Lok Sabha elections 2019, a training programme for Nodal Officers of departments and directorates in connection with formation and functioning of Voters Awareness Forum (VAF) was conducted by State level master trainers at Hotel Japfü, Kohima on Tuesday.
Briefing the participants, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Abhijit Sinha, said that election is an important thing in a democracy which should be ethical and for which the ECI has decided that every organisation (government or private) should have Voters Awareness Forum (VAF) under the chairmanship of departmental head, one nodal officer with five to six executive members, for generating discussions and awareness around the electoral process, DIPR reported.
CEO said that an intensive campaign will also be carried out appealing the citizens and political parties in the State or UTs to search and verify their names in the electoral rolls and to ensure that their names were listed in the electoral rolls. He said only those names enrolled in the existing electoral roll would be eligible to exercise his or her vote in the elections.
He said the campaign has been christened as “Voters Verification and Information Programme (VVIP) where verification of names in Photo Electoral Roll (PER) will be an important activity of the Voter Awareness Forum.
He therefore, appealed to the voters to visit National Voters Services Portal, (www.nsvp.in) to check their elector details of names and Epic etc. And to call toll free 1950 for election related issues.
Reminding that only EPIC holder will be entitled to vote, he urged the electors to apply for registration in the electoral roll for exercising voting right.
Additional CEO, N. Moa Aier and deputy CEO, Vekho Vero highlighted the activities, Voter Verification and information programme and the roles and responsibilities of the VAF. The master trainers for the training were associate professor, Kohima College, Keneilesa and Wozhamo research associate SCERT while programmer Kitoka presented a power point presentation on registration and name check.