Vijayawada: Voter awareness through sand sculpture

Vijayawada: Noted sand sculptor Akunuru Balaji Varaprasad made sand sculpture at Dr BR Ambedkar Smritivanam here on Monday to bring awareness among voters in an innovative way.

District collector S Dilli Rao visited the sand sculpture and said that they had undertaken innovative ideas to bring awareness among voters to participate in the democratic process of elections.

As part of the Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation programme, a target has been set to take the voting percentage up to 85 per cent in the district and 80 per cent in the urban areas, the collector said.

Collector inaugurated the sand sculpture along with joint collector Dr P Sampat Kumar and others.

Dilli Rao said that he was happy to see the wonderful sand sculpture which will bring awareness among voters. The sculpture points out that the vote is not for sale and affirms that ‘I will voter compulsorily.’ Joint collector Dr P Sampat Kumar said that SVEEP programmes had been undertaken to bring awareness among voters particularly in the urban areas in the district. He called upon people to exercise their right to vote with the true spirit of democracy. Sand sculptor Balaji Varaprasad said that he belonged to Pallevada of Kaikaluru mandal in Krishna district and settled in Vijayawada. He had achieved several national and international awards in sand sculpting. He was happy that he was part of the awareness programme for increasing the vote percentage.

SVEEP nodal officer U Srinivasa Rao, people’s balladeer R Pitchaiah, artist Arava Ramesh, Gandhi Nagaraju and others were present.