Former Jalore Electoral Officer given Election Commission's award

JAIPUR: Reaching out to remote areas and convincing people, especially women, to play their role in democracy has fetched former Jalore Electoral Officer Rajan Vishal, the Election Commission's Zonal award under the Best Electoral Practices Award-2014.

Vishal, who is now District Collector of Nagaur, was the District Electoral Officer of Jalore during the Lok Sabha elections last year and he had taken initiatives to increase voters' participation through education and awareness campaign which resulted in about 22 per cent increase in voters.

The Election Commission will present the award to Vishal, a 2008-batch IAS officer, at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on August 10.

"There are several villages in Jalore constituency where many people, including mostly women, never voted. Under the awareness campaign before elections, I focused on these villages and towns and convinced people to enroll as voters and go to polling stations to exercise their right to franchise on the polling day," Vishal told PTI today.

In the Lok Sabha elections, there were total 18,24,968 electors, including 8,60,922 women voters, in the Jalore constituency and 21.89 per cent of them were enrolled after the special efforts by Vishal.