The ‘election prayer’ idea of the Poona Diocese to encourage more people from the Catholic community to exercise their franchise seems to have worked.

In a departure from the general trend in the city of recording around 40 per cent voter turnout, the Catholic community in Pune is believed to have doubled their previous percentage on April 23.

According to Diago Almeida, president, Poona Catholic Association, the voting percentage amongst Catholics in the city was at least 80 per cent this time.

“I can say this for sure as, being a member of the Consumer Forum, I was actively involved in the process of getting voters registered and monitoring the turnout,” said Almeida.

He added that the community’s voting percentage in 2004 was 45 per cent and attributed the turnaround to the novel move by the Poona Diocese that brought out an ‘election prayer’ a month before polls in a bid to motivate the community to vote.

As reported by The Indian Express on March 24, all 37 churches under the Poona Diocese had started reciting the ‘election prayer’ every Sunday after it was printed and handed out to all the churches by the Diocese.

While Father Malcolm Sequeira, pastor of St Patricks’s Cathedral and Father Wilfred of Don Bosco scripted the prayer, it was sent out with the approval of Father Valerian D’Souza, the then Bishop of the Diocese.

“In fact, after the report appeared, churches in Nashik, Mumbai, Vasai and even some from Gujarat also called and asked us to send the prayer for their churches too. We also had it translated into Marathi. So the impact was wider. As far as my parish is concerned I can confidently say that the percentage was at least 70 and it was generally the same or more at other parishes in the city,” said Father Malcolm Sequeira, also the Poona Diocese spokesperson.

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