District electoral office of North Kolkata unveils its mascot ‘Tenida’

The district electoral office of North Kolkata on Wednesday unveiled its vote mascot ‘Tenida’ ahead of the Lok Sabha elections which will be used for creating awareness about voting among the residents. North Kolkata is known for lesser voting percentage with 60 per cent voting taking place during 2021 Assembly polls and 66 per cent during 2019 Lok Sabha.

Tenida – a fictional native of Pataldanga Street in Kolkata had been a voter of Booth 126 at Mitra Institution in Sealdah under Jorasanko Assembly Constituency. The character of Tenida was a creation of Narayan Gangopadhyay.

“Once a voter of North Kolkata, Tenida is making a comeback as a voter in order to encourage voters to cast their franchise. The mood of adda associated with North Kolkata was also an intrinsic part of Tenida’s everyday life which is another major reason behind using Tenida as a mascot. We have set a target of 75 per cent voting in North Kolkata during the forthcoming Lok Sabha,” Rahul Majumdar, District Electoral Officer (DEO), North Kolkata said.

Tenida and his team will be staging a short street drama in different parts of the Parliamentary constituency in an effort to woo voters to the polling booths. Voting percentage in this part of the city is a challenge, not only because of a major portion of the constituency being a business area but also one-fifth of the population being migrant labourers. The total number of voters as per the electoral roll published on January 22 is 15,01,779.

State Chief Electoral Officer, Aariz Aftab who officially unveiled the mascot advised the DEO’s office to start epic distribution at the earliest and take necessary measures to ensure that error-free cards reach the residences.

“Another final supplement of the voters will be published on the last date of nomination of polls and efforts should be taken to ensure that it is completely free from any errors,” he added. This final supplement will be used for the voting process.