Its called "Persuade with Power" and objective is to persuade the listeners to adopt your viewpoint or ideas or take some action. As for any speech project, lessons from previous projects should be kept in mind. For effective persuasion, i used the whiteboard to write all the percentages and other stats used in this speech.
Good Afternoon Fellow Toastmasters.
How many of you remember having cast your vote for the last Lok Sabha or the general election of 2009?
< counted the numbers> 50%
And the last Vidhan Sabha or State election? Again the same, 50%
And the next obvious question is, how many of you voted for the last Municipal election of your city? Oh, this is lesser than 50%
Pitiable, isn’t it? According to the election commission of India, the all India voter turnout for 2009 general election was 58.19%. Voters turnout in the UP State assembly election 2012 – 59.52%, Uttarakhand – 67.70%, MP 2008 - 69.28 %, For the Municipal Election for Indore in 2009 – 50.03%.
Why? Why this Kolaveri Di?
Sure, we all have our reasons – 1) What difference does one vote make, do I or my vote even matter in this huge scheme of things? 2) But I live here, and my name is there in the voter list of my birthplace. Surely I am not going to travel that long just for casting my vote! 3) The politicians, they all are the same, why should I waste my precious time and energy on useless things?
Really? Let us look at these questions one by one. First, does your vote matter. You tell me. Does your citizenship matter? Can your opinion be only expressed in terms of protests and street marches? If each one of the millions of droplets in an ocean begin to think in the same way, will there be any ocean? Do you know how much the election commission of India spend on elections? Any guesses? According to data available on ECI’s website, it was...let me put the zeroes first, how many should I put? Nine. It was Rs. 1300,00,00,000 - thirteen hundred crore - for 2004 Lok Sabha elections. That was 12.21 Rs. per person in that year. Where do you think all this money comes from?? The taxes you and I, the 2.77% tax paying population in this country, pay.
And this money is only how much the ECI spent. It allows political parties to spend about 2000 crore rupees for election propaganda, well….they actually spend 8000 crore rupees - only to impress voters. Only to impress you. The individual voter. So, my dear friends, even one vote counts.
The second reason that we usually give, of our name not being on the voter list, is actually a myth. If you are a resident citizen of India and have been living in one city for more than six months, you are eligible to vote from that very place. All you have to do is to fill out a voter registration form, give a valid current address proof; an officer will come to your house for address verification and your name will be added to the list. This way you can vote for all three levels – central, state and city elections. For more details please visit the site, http://www.jaagore.com/vote/faq.php.
Our third most common reason to not vote is about the political class in general. They are all the same, doesn’t matter who wins, it is we who stand to lose. Do you realize what has led to this situation? What is the cause and what is the effect here? It’s a vicious circle – we, the educated masses, don’t vote, so people who should really come to power don’t. Those who do, whichever political party they belong to, analyze and understand who actually votes and run populist schemes based on our age old socio-economic divide for some time to get back in power. And the cycle continues, and will continue until we all decide that enough is enough and that voter turnout goes to 90%. This will make the policymakers take proper decisions, which do well in the long run.
I sincerely believe that if we spread the word, create awareness about the importance and ease of voting, your paramount right as a citizen, and dismantle the myths associated with it, this feat is achievable. Remember, together we can, and should, and will make a difference. After all, every vote counts.
Thank You.
How many of you remember having cast your vote for the last Lok Sabha or the general election of 2009?
< counted the numbers> 50%
And the last Vidhan Sabha or State election? Again the same, 50%
And the next obvious question is, how many of you voted for the last Municipal election of your city? Oh, this is lesser than 50%
Pitiable, isn’t it? According to the election commission of India, the all India voter turnout for 2009 general election was 58.19%. Voters turnout in the UP State assembly election 2012 – 59.52%, Uttarakhand – 67.70%, MP 2008 - 69.28 %, For the Municipal Election for Indore in 2009 – 50.03%.
Why? Why this Kolaveri Di?
Sure, we all have our reasons – 1) What difference does one vote make, do I or my vote even matter in this huge scheme of things? 2) But I live here, and my name is there in the voter list of my birthplace. Surely I am not going to travel that long just for casting my vote! 3) The politicians, they all are the same, why should I waste my precious time and energy on useless things?
Really? Let us look at these questions one by one. First, does your vote matter. You tell me. Does your citizenship matter? Can your opinion be only expressed in terms of protests and street marches? If each one of the millions of droplets in an ocean begin to think in the same way, will there be any ocean? Do you know how much the election commission of India spend on elections? Any guesses? According to data available on ECI’s website, it was...let me put the zeroes first, how many should I put? Nine. It was Rs. 1300,00,00,000 - thirteen hundred crore - for 2004 Lok Sabha elections. That was 12.21 Rs. per person in that year. Where do you think all this money comes from?? The taxes you and I, the 2.77% tax paying population in this country, pay.
And this money is only how much the ECI spent. It allows political parties to spend about 2000 crore rupees for election propaganda, well….they actually spend 8000 crore rupees - only to impress voters. Only to impress you. The individual voter. So, my dear friends, even one vote counts.
The second reason that we usually give, of our name not being on the voter list, is actually a myth. If you are a resident citizen of India and have been living in one city for more than six months, you are eligible to vote from that very place. All you have to do is to fill out a voter registration form, give a valid current address proof; an officer will come to your house for address verification and your name will be added to the list. This way you can vote for all three levels – central, state and city elections. For more details please visit the site, http://www.jaagore.com/vote/faq.php.
Our third most common reason to not vote is about the political class in general. They are all the same, doesn’t matter who wins, it is we who stand to lose. Do you realize what has led to this situation? What is the cause and what is the effect here? It’s a vicious circle – we, the educated masses, don’t vote, so people who should really come to power don’t. Those who do, whichever political party they belong to, analyze and understand who actually votes and run populist schemes based on our age old socio-economic divide for some time to get back in power. And the cycle continues, and will continue until we all decide that enough is enough and that voter turnout goes to 90%. This will make the policymakers take proper decisions, which do well in the long run.
I sincerely believe that if we spread the word, create awareness about the importance and ease of voting, your paramount right as a citizen, and dismantle the myths associated with it, this feat is achievable. Remember, together we can, and should, and will make a difference. After all, every vote counts.
Thank You.
This speech took 8:38 minutes to deliver and was appreciated for effectively using statistics from reliable sources and the speech organization, flow and delivery. Timing was exceeded quite a bit.
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