Intresting :)
A.R. Rahman to help Delhi improve voter turnout
November 20th, 2008 - 4:04 pm ICT by IANS -
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New Delhi, Nov 20 (IANS) The electoral office in the national capital is trying
to rope in playback singer A.R. Rahman to educate people about the benefits of
elections and improve voter turnout for the Nov 29 assembly election.“Rahman
has already given us permission to use one of his compositions for our
awareness campaign. Now we are trying to rope him in personally to campaign for
us and tell people to come out and vote,” said Satbir Silas Bedi, chief
electoral officer of Delhi.
“We have written to him about this and expect a reply very soon,” Bedi told
IANS.
The electoral office is using one of Rahman’s compositions, “Pappu can’t
dance…” from the Bollywood movie “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na” for creating TV, radio
and print adds to encourage voters to cast their ballots.
The campaign aims at creating awareness among 12 different segments of people
who generally don’t vote.
“We want to create a sense of shame among people but tell this in a humorous
way. Bollywood songs are a great means to reach the masses and in particular
the youngsters.
“As a sequel to the awareness campaigns, we will hold few programmes with Mr.
Rahman as the key attraction,” she said.
Bedi, however, clarified that the electoral office has made it clear to the
singer that he will not get any remuneration for this.
“We cannot pay anything. We expect him to do this as a national responsibility.
But lets see if he has time for this,” she added.
The voter turnout has been dwindling in Delhi over a period of time. While the
2002 assembly election saw little less than 50 percent turn out, the civic
election last year saw 43 percent turn out.
There are 10.7 million eligible voters in the capital.
