Young voters are at the heart of the Election Commission of India’s renewed push to build an informed and engaged electorate, with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar calling for sustained engagement with students and first-time voters as the poll panel launched Electoral Literacy Clubs 2.0 in Patna on Monday.
Kumar stressed the need to familiarise young electors with the functioning of India’s electoral system, including voter registration, polling and counting, democratic values and the role of the Election Commission. Under the new framework, Electoral Literacy Clubs will be transformed into structured, visible and digitally enabled platforms across schools, colleges and universities. The scale of the initiative is significant. The ECI sees this network as an opportunity to institutionalise electoral education rather than rely solely on election-time voter awareness campaigns. The clubs will also familiarise young citizens with ECINet, the Commission’s digital platform for election-related services and information. The initiative is expected to be rolled out through a dedicated ELC registration and onboarding portal linked to the ECI website and ECINet. The clubs will form a pan-India network through which educational institutions can conduct activities and share electoral learning resources. The Commission’s stated vision is to develop a deeply rooted democratic culture in which every young citizen understands India’s electoral system and the principles of trust, transparency and integrity underpinning it. At Monday’s programme, the ECI unveiled a new logo for the Electoral Literacy Clubs and adopted the tagline, “Learn Democracy. Lead Democracy.
The ECI’s ELC programme was first introduced in 2018 under its Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme to introduce students to democratic values, the electoral process and the role and functioning of the Commission. Officials said ELC 2.0 has been conceived as a response to a rapidly changing communication environment, shifting media consumption patterns and the growing reliance of young people on digital platforms. India has approximately 15 lakh schools with nearly 25 crore students and around one crore teachers, while the higher education system comprises about 1,500 universities and 70,000 educational institutions with more than four crore students. EC officials said ELC 2.0 will provide students with factual and experiential understanding of the entire electoral cycle – from registration and preparation of electoral rolls to polling and counting. Officials said the Commission aims to establish clubs across 15 lakh schools, around 70,000 colleges and 1,420 universities over the next six months.
He said elections in India are held “strictly as per the Constitution of India, law and instructions issued by ECI” and conducted transparently, with political parties, candidates and their representatives able to participate in and scrutinise the process at different stages. Rather than functioning only around election periods, the clubs will conduct continuous, year-round activities aimed at building electoral literacy among young people and awareness among citizens more broadly, according to EC officials. The broader objective is not simply to increase voter registration or turnout, officials said, but to encourage citizens to participate enthusiastically, responsibly and meaningfully in democratic processes. The Commission said the aim is to encourage young and first-time voters not merely to understand how elections work but to participate meaningfully and contribute to the strengthening of democratic institutions.
