Impact of Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) activities (conducted by JEEViKA promoted CBOs) on Women Participation in Legislative Assembly Elections of Bihar

Seventeenth legislative assembly election in Bihar, 2020

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-148-7_6How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation program (SVEEP); Right to Vote; Community Based Organizations (CBOs)

Abstract

The Constitution of India aspires that every adult Indian exercise their Right to Vote. It is the endeavour of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to inform, empower, engage, and facilitate the voter to participate. ECI’s dialogue with the people of Jharkhand during 2009 State Legislative Assembly elections has resulted into the well-known, Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme, which is an effective tool for enhanced and aware electoral engagement. The core objective of SVEEP is to take forward the ECI’s mandate of conducting free and fair elections with higher level of participation and inclusiveness of voters. The seventeenth Legislative Assembly elections in Bihar has achieved instrumental increment in female participation and their exercise of right to vote. The paper tries to build upon the insights, observations, findings, conclusions, and recommendations of Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP), endline survey of 2019 and Knowledge, Attitude, Behavior, Belief, and Practices (KABBP) baseline survey of 2020 of the citizens in Bihar pertaining to Bihar esp. women for improving voter engagement, participation, and the potential exposure of SVEEP activities on the rural populace. The intervention strategy taken-up by the Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in Bihar to reach-out to the electors, improve electoral awareness and increase female participation in the elections by engaging the three-tier community structure. The paper tries to capture the impact of the SVEEP activities undertaken by the JEEViKA promoted CBOs in Bihar on Female Participation in the seventeenth Legislative Elections, 2020 of Bihar in comparison to that of the sixteenth Legislative Assembly Elections, 2015 esp. for women. Despite the adversities of COVID-19, the 2020 Bihar Legislative Assemble Elections has achieved an increased female voter turnout of more than 3 percent w.r.t. previous Legislative Assembly Elections held in 2015. The CBOs are playing an important role in strengthening the democratic processes at the grassroot level and are acting as better avenues for ushering inclusive development through improved gender representation in the electoral process. There is, however, still scope to raise the polling percentage by indulging in State specific study and interventions.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Om Prakash
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/12/06
TI  - Impact of Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) activities (conducted by JEEViKA promoted CBOs) on Women Participation in Legislative Assembly Elections of Bihar
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference for Democracy and National Resilience (ICDNR 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 52
EP  - 76
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-148-7_6
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-148-7_6
ID  - Prakash2023
ER  -