Urban body takes students’ route to curb ‘note for vote’ culture

“We are distributing declaration forms to the students and explaining them the importance of casting vote. The students will go to their parents and would implore them to cast their votes and not to accept cash for vote. This will make the parents committed towards the election process,” a Chennai Corporation official said.

The forms are being distributed to all students at private, government and Chennai Corporation schools.

The official added that during the previous elections, they were conducting awareness programmes for the college students and made them take an oath to vote. This time, in addition to the awareness campaigns in colleges, they are conducting campaigns in schools, too.

“My daughter is an LKG student in a private school in Saidapet. She came to me and asked to sign the declaration form imploring me and my wife to vote and avoid receiving cash for votes. She also explained the importance of the election that her teachers taught her,” B Vijayakumar of West Saidapet said.

Meanwhile, the Corporation had conducted an awareness programme, on Wednesday, at Chennai Corporation Middle School in MGR Nagar, where 950 students and 60 teachers took part. “During the programme, we sensitised the students about the importance of voting apart from creating awareness on source segregation of garbage. All the students were given declaration forms,” the official added.