National Voters' Day: Ace TT player Manika Batra, President Kovind to Attend Delhi Event

National Voters' Day | As the country celebrates 9th National Voters' Day (NVD) on January 25, ace table tennis player and Commonwealth medallist Manika Batra will participate in a Delhi programme to raise awareness ahead on Lok Sabha polls.

Batra has been chosen as an ambassador by the office of the Delhi chief electoral officer (CEO) and the event marking National Voters' Day will also see hosting of street plays and felicitation of polling officials.

"She has been chosen to spread awareness on voting in Delhi ahead of the general election and on January 25, she will attend the event hosted on the campus of the CEO office," a senior official told PTI.

He said, a proposal has been sent to cricketer Rishabh Pant to have him on board as another brand ambassador for spreading awareness on voting in the capital city.

President Ram Nath Kovind will be the chief guest at the function being organised by Election Commission at Manekshaw Centre, where Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will also be present.

The CEO office had recently released the final electoral roll ahead of the 2019 general elections, which stands at 1,36,95,291, which is 0.87 per cent less than the total number of electors in the last electoral roll, 1,38,14,866, published on January 10, 2018.

However, the final electoral roll shows an increase of nearly 8 per cent from the total number of electors in the last Lok Sabha polls in 2014, officials said.

A campaign involving Batra will begin soon to promote voting, they said.

Seeking to promote awareness, the office of the Delhi CEO Tuesday had launched a Voter Awareness Forum (VAF), an informal forum for generating discussions and build awareness on the election process.

"We had recently launched an awareness programme on EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) and VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail), as part of which we have installed kiosks at various public places across Delhi. And, today this forum has been launched at 300 locations in the city, from state to district levels," Delhi CEO Ranbir Singh had said at the launch of the forum at the CEO Office here.