Mumbai: With just 10 days left for voting for the Maharashtra assembly polls, the Election Commission (EC) has stepped up its voter awareness drive. On Friday, the EC launched a special campaign to promote voter education and participation in which Bollywood celebrities, sportspersons and several other public figures participated as goodwill ambassadors. The EC also released a campaign song ‘Yeh Pudhe, Matdaan Kar’ (Come forward and vote).

The goodwill ambassadors included director Rohit Shetty, actors like Ananya Pandey, Varsha Usgaonkar, Manoj Joshi, Sonali Khare, Ali Asgar, comedian Bharti Singh, cricketer Ajinkya Rahane, singers like Rahul Saxena, Milind Ingle, social activist Gauri Sawant and others .

Mumbai Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar, BMC Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, Chief Electoral Officer S. Chockalingam and other senior officials also attended the event.

The statement issued by the EC said, “In the run-up to the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections, a special campaign titled ‘Election Celebration, Maharashtra Pride’ has been launched under the SVEEP (Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation) program to promote voter education and Participation The campaign was inaugurated at the Gateway of India, where a new voting anthem, ‘Yeh Pudhe, Matdaan Kar’ (Come forward and vote) was launched.

The initiative was aimed at promoting voter awareness in all assembly constituencies of Maharashtra, covering every district including Mumbai. After the event, a voter awareness rally was held from India Gate to the residential areas of Colaba to further engage the citizens.

Total number of voters in Maharashtra

According to the electoral roll released on 30 October 2024, Maharashtra has over 9.70 million registered voters, of which 22.22 lakh are between the ages of 18 and 19 – who can be counted as first-time voters. The Electoral Commission has given time until October 19 for new voters to register.

The total number of registered voters in Maharashtra is 9,70,25,119 out of which 5,00,22,739 are male, 4,69,96,279 are female and 6101 are third gender voters.

Voting for 288 assemblies in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase on November 20. The results will be declared on November 23. A public holiday has been declared in Mumbai for all government, private sectors and business and commercial establishments on November 20 to allow citizens to cast their votes.