The Election Commission of India on Friday will convene a meeting with the municipal commissioners and district election officers from 11 states that witnessed low voter turnout during the previous general election.

According to the ECI, the meeting will deliberate and prepare targeted and specific action plans to address the issue of low voter turnout in certain urban and rural areas. The initiative aims to ensure that the maximum number of voters participate in the upcoming general elections.

The conference will be chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar along with Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu.

CEC Kumar has earlier highlighted the challenge of urban apathy and migration from rural areas as reasons for low voter participation.

In the 2019 general elections, 11 states and Union territories, namely Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, NCT of Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, and Jharkhand, recorded a voter turnout lower than the national average of 67.40%.

Of the 50 parliamentary constituencies with the lowest voter turnouts, 17 were found to be in metropolitan areas or major cities, reflecting an unfortunate trend of urban apathy, the ECI said. Over 50 rural parliamentary constituencies across nine states with the lowest voter turnout have been identified for developing a strategy to enhance poll percentage.

The conference will be attended by municipal commissioners of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Thane, Nagpur, Patna Sahib, Lucknow and Kanpur, along with district election officers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.