To begin with, Asim and I are not residents of Malleswaram (MVM), so to mobilize residents of MVM to attend an awareness drive on Jaagte Raho was challenging.

Our general observation was that all the residents of MVM were emotionally attached to the locality and hence were highly active in various social forums that focused on issues like Solid Waste Management, drinking water, roads and cleaning up the voter's list. This made our task alot easier than we had expected.

We started by contacting a couple of long term associates of Janaagraha, Ms. Meenakshi Bharath and Ms. Sumati Rao, who gave us the contact details of some key associations in the area like Rotary, Inner Wheel, Lions, Lioness, MSI, Nightingale Elder's association, Sankey Tank Walkers Association etc. to name a few. It was humbling to see the Secretary of Rotary, Ms. Prabhavathi, go out of her way to help us connect with some of the responsible citizens of MVM.

We found the local politicians like the sitting MLA, Dr. Ashwath Narayan and the ex-MLA, Mr. Seetharam to be very approachable and keen to support and participate in this Jaagte Raho campaign.

The event had the MLA, the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO)– Ms. Lakshmidevi, Rotary president Mr. Sampathkumar Iyengar and the various other prominent residents in attendance. The rotary president graciously offered the use of their community hall for our meeting.

The event was attended by more than 50 people and it started on time. We started with an introduction to Jaagte Raho! by Mr. Jasmine Shah which was followed by Ms. Uthara’s talk on the AVM concept. The concept was well received and led to a healthy Q&A session with most of the attendees asking questions and offering their assessment.  The ERO then took the stage to give an overview of the current challenges that her office is facing in ensuring an updated voter’s list and participation. The ERO expressed her appreciation for Jaagte Raho initiative and believed that such citizen’s participation in this activity will help her office tremendously.

Finally, the guest of honor, Dr. Ashwath Narayan spoke about the challenges that he faced during his elections in ensuring a clean voter’s list and encouraging voter’s participation. He felt very strongly about the Jaagte Raho ! initiative and felt that we should stop blaming the systems and participate to make sure Malleswaram’s voter average goes up to 80% in all the 7 wards.

Mallika Goud

Team Jaagte Raho!