Mumbai, May 31: The next time you log on to Orkut or Facebook, you might find a post asking you to register for voting or to vote for a certain candidate. The message won’t be from a politician, but from candidates aspiring to book themselves a place in the decision making body of the Mumbai University.
With the university’s senate election likely to be held in August after five years, campaigning for the polls and the voter registration process are already on in full swing. Candidates and students’ wings of political parties are for the first time using the online media to reach out to maximum graduates, who can participate in the polls.
“We want to reach out to maximum graduates by June 19, which is when the voter registration process ends. Most of the youth today are logged on to social networking sites. This is the first time that we are making use of the Internet to campaign for the senate elections. We can spread the message to many people in lesser time through these sites,” said Prakash Belawade, state secretary, Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
“All that we have to do is to post the profile of some of our candidates and advertise it. The same ad also has the link of the registration forms for the voting process.” Apart from online campaigning, ABVP is also using the traditional door-to-door technique to attract graduate voters.
After the voter registration process ends on June 19, the final list of candidates will be announced by student organisations. While some candidates have backing of student organisations, there are several others who are contesting independently. Praveen Patkar, an independent candidate, who is also software professional, will make his appeal to voters via e-mail.
“I am forwarding messages and e-mails to friends and family members asking them to register for the elections. The only aim now is to get as many voters to register for the process and then the campaigning will begin,” said Patkar.
Sanjay Vairal from the SC/ST students’ and teachers’ organisation has taken the middle path and advertised in newspapers about his candidature. “We received good response after the advertisement was printed. There is a woman candidate also contesting from our organisation in the reserved category and we plan to circulate pamphlets in public places to attract voters to register first.”
In a debut of sorts, Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) will for the first time officially participate in the university’s senate elections. Even though two members from the current senate are affiliated to MNS, the party was not formed five years ago when the last senate elections were conducted.
—Agencies