The Election Commission of India (ECI) has postponed two Electoral Literacy Club (ELC) regional conferences in Uttar Pradesh that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar was scheduled to address, officials said Friday.
Electoral Literacy Clubs (ELCs) are a voter-education initiative run by the ECI in schools and colleges to familiarise young and first-time voters with the electoral processes. These include registration, polling, counting, and the Commission’s constitutional role. The outreach programme was to be held in Meerut on Friday with an interaction with young voters on Friday, followed by a similar Gen-Z engagement event in Varanasi on September 28 (Monday). An ECI official said the decision was not linked to the ongoing controversy, and that the two conferences were postponed on September 21 and the decision was communicated to officials the same day.
“Adjustments in dates of events is an ongoing process which is necessitated by various factors such as availability of venues, schedules of higher authorities, natural factors,” the ECI official said. Officials said there had been many occasions in the past when such ELC conferences were postponed or rescheduled in Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Uttarakhand.
