You have been appointed by Election Commission as a booth level officer to oversee the conduct of elections in a remote and under-developed area. For the preparations of elections, you have been instructed to ensure maximum voter turnout. For this, you conduct a series of meetings with the people in villages encouraging them to vote in large numbers. However, they confront you with the fact that despite so many previous elections, the promises made by representatives remain unfulfilled and even the basic necessities of livelihood are not available. As such, they are ignorant of your appeals and are subsequently not forthcoming even to listen to you, let alone giving assurances to vote. Based on this information, answer the following questions: 20 (a) Identify the stakeholders in the situation along with their interests. (b) What are the factors that you will take into account to convince the people and ensure maximum voter turnout?

(a) Stakeholders

(b) Given the people are deprived of their needs, I'll have to take different factors into consideration:

• What is the basic reason for the services not reaching them?. I can talk to them about their problem at my best capacity & assure them to relay them to concerned departments.

• Check if they are aware of their basic rights and powers as voters?.

They can be asked to read the manifestos the candidates & decide smartly whom to vote for instead of sitting idle & letting someone unworthy win the election. I'll use fear appeal to tap their anxiety & how they'll lose more by not voting.

• I'll look for the most logical & revered person in the area & try to convince him about the benefits of voting. He can then try to influence & persuade others on my behalf.

• If the campaigning period is still underway, I'll try to look for a possible visit by different candidates, especially ones local to the area who can understand their demands better.

• If nothing works, I'll try to convince them to atleast vote 'NOTA' to get their grievance registered through a public forum. Subsequent attention will definitely bring some sort of relief to the area.