Aman Zutshi
Several youth in Jatwal area of Samba has organised a Night Cricket tournament in which 32 parties are going to take part. The Night Cricket tournament is being organised by Youth Affairs and Sports Committee Jatwal as a SVEEP program to aware locals about voting.
“The local administration have extended their support to the cricket enthusiasts by visiting the inaugural matches between two teams yesterday”, DC Samba Abhishek Sharma said.
He added, “The Election Commission has issued its calendar of polling and on 26 april people will go to cast votes. We are ensuring SVEEP activities “Activities under Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation” in every poll booth so voter education and
participation in elections can be increased. In this connection, we have made Jatwal a youth polling station and local youngsters are organising a night cricket tournament which will begin today and it is 16 day long tournament.
“There are 32 teams that are participating and 2 teams have inaugurated this event today but our main motive is to ensure youth participation in elections and we have taken oath from all the participants of these teams that they will come to cast their votes on 26 April here. They should also encourage their family members and others for voting”, he said.
“The voter turnout in the last assembly election was 83% and our target is to improve voting percentage in this Lok Sabha election and our aim is to increase voter participation through such youth-led initiatives”, he apprised.
“This Night Cricket tournament is being organised by Youth Affairs and Sports Committee Jatwal to aware specially-abled individuals and senior citizens through this SVEEP tournament to make sure 100 % voter turnout in Samba and the local authority is supporting and guiding us. DC Samba Abhishek Sharma and Tehsildar Shakeel Ahmed sir have come here to support and raise our spirits. We want to keep away drug activities from this place. Manit Jasrotia has played in this ground and he is going to debut in IPL”, a local youth said.
Another youth added, “This tournament is conducted annually in Jatwal in this month. We learn alot in such events and we want govt to organise such tournaments for us as this pedestal provides a platform for youth to play cricket. We should abstain from drugs as it will give us nothing”.
