Patna, Jan. 11: Youths need to exercise their electoral franchise if they want their grievances to be raised by political parties and redressed by the government.

This was felt by retired additional chief electoral officer Kumar Anshumali today at a workshop, Participation of Youth in Electoral Process, organised by the political science department of Magadh Mahila College on the institute’s premises.

Addressing the students, Anshumali said the participation of Indian youths in the electoral process was not encouraging. “Youths account for 41 per cent of the country’s population. But most of them are not interested in the electoral process and they don’t exercise their electoral franchise,” he regretted.

“The youths must under-stand that they should vote and put pressure on future governments to look into their issues and redress their grievances,” he added.

According to the last Census, youths belonging to the age groups of 18-19 years and 19-20 years account for the country’s six per cent population. “But barely 1.5 per cent of them vote. This has to be changed at any cost,” Anshumali said.

He urged the students to make their peers as well as families aware of the importance of the electoral system. “If you know anybody in your family or neighbourhood who does not vote, you have to moti-vate him or her,” Anshumali told them.

Deputy electoral officer (Patna) Sanjai Kumar Mishra, said, “While 2,002,260 men turned up during the last election in Patna district, the number of women voters was 1,647,623.”

Shashi Sharma, the head of the political science depar-tment, said: “The main objective of the workshop is to make the students understand the importance of the electoral process and the need for the youths to exercise their electoral franchise.”

A voter’s registration camp was organised by the State Election Commission on the occasion, About 300 students got their names registered for ID cards. Seema Gupta, a BA Part II student, said: “I am looking forward to get my ID card. Once I get it, I will be able to vote.”

Varsha Kumari, another student, said: “I did not face any difficulty in getting my name registered at the camp for the voter ID card.”

The state poll panel would organise similar camps at Sri Arvind Mahila College, JD Women’s College and Ganga Devi Mahila College.