Election Commission’s song ‘Main Bharat Hoon’ to nudge voters for upcoming elections, creates buzz on social media

New Delhi (03/02/2023): The Election Commission of India (ECI) is gearing for the nine Assembly Elections this year and the Lok Sabha polls early next year with an aim to push the voter percentages through innovative communication strategies. As one of the initiatives, ECI in collaboration with Subhash Ghai Foundation produced a Song- ‘Main Bharat Hoon, Hum Bharat ke Matdata Hain’ featuring celebrities from different walks of life, appealing to voters to cast their vote and fulfil their Constitutional duty. The song, which was screened in the presence of the Hon’ble President of India on the 13^th National Voter’s Day (NVD) – 25^th January, 2023, is already beginning to gain traction on social media through celebrities and influencers. Within a week since its launch, the Hindi and the multilingual format of the song has already got over 3.5 lakh views and 5.6 lakh impressions on four major social media platforms viz. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

The song is one of such initiatives of ECI’s ‘Systematic Voter’s Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme, which is the flagship voter education programme focused on inclusion strategies and action plans for enhancing participation from all categories of voters under ECI’s motto of ‘No Voter to be Left Behind.’. The song is aimed not only at educating the voters regarding their rights and responsibility towards strengthening democracy but also at enthusing them for greater participation in the electoral process.

The song was finalized after a number of interactions of the team led by Subhash Ghai with the Election Commission led by Rajiv Kumar, Chief Election Commissioner and attended by Anup Chandra Pandey, EC and Arun Goel, EC. On the song, the Chief Election Commissioner said, “The song is dedicated to each voter who takes cognizance of their national duty and casts their vote beating all odds. The song tends to inspire new voters, enthuse future voters and young voters, reflects the aspirations of centenarian voters, service voters, PwD voters, celebrates women voters who have shown faith in democracy and outnumbered male voters in 2019 elections and have set a new goal for ECI and themselves. Celebrating the diversity and demography of India, the song attempts to contribute to NVD 2023 theme of ‘Nothing like voting, I vote for sure.”

Some notable features of the songs are:

1. The inspiring and motivating lyrics of the song are written and composed by the legendary filmmaker, Subhash Ghai in association with Whistling Woods International School of Music, Mumbai.
2. The song is sung in Hindi and 12 regional languages viz. Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese, Odia, Kashmiri, Santali covering the maximum geographical area.
3. The chorus of the song ‘Mai Bharat Hoon’ is uniform in all the versions.
4. The celebrity singers in Hindi version are Sukhvinder Singh, Kavita Krishna Murthy, Sonu Nigam, Hari Haran, Alka Yagnik, Javed Ali, KS Chithra, Kaushiki Chakravarthy, Ustad Rashid khan
5. The celebrity singers for regional version are Kaushiki Chakraborty, Vaishali Samant, Bhoomi Trivedi, Mika Singh, K. S. Chithra, Mano, Vijay Prakash, Vijay Yesudas, Papon, Dipti Rekha Padhi, Mehmeet Syed, Pankaj Jal.
6. The song is released in various versions., Hindi version, multilingual version, instrumental version, piano version, international soundtrack, and ringtone version.
7.  The song depicts the diverse voter group comprising of the women voters, young voters, centenarian voters, PwD voters highlighting inclusive and accessible elections.
8. The song is produced keeping the regional diversity, cultural, socio-economical and geographical aspects of the country at the centre and henceforth representing the power of the voter.
9. ECI Icons Pankaj Tripathi along with renowned celebrities like Anil Kapoor, Sidharth Malhotra, R. Madhavan, Subodh Bhave, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Mohanlal, Kapil Bora, Suriya, Gippy Grewal, Shubman Gill, Harshal Patel, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer are also seen in the song video emphasising on the ‘Value of One Vote.’
10. Veteran director, producer and writer Subhash Ghai, singers viz. Sonu Nigam, Ustad Rashid Khan, K.S Chithra, Deepti Rekha Padhi, Vaishali Samant, Mehmeet Syed, Papon, Abhishek Bonthu, and ECI icon Pankaj Tripathi graced the celebration of the 13^th National Voters’ Day in New Delhi.
11. The lyrics of the song draw inspiration from the belief that every Indian loves India. Their souls, hearts, minds and bodies speak of India with pride, owing to its ancient roots yet progressive and modern with glowing future as a strong democracy in the world. Every Indian is proud to say that ‘I am India’ (Main Bharat Hoon) because they know the power of the individual vote to elect the best of executives to govern and build our country. This song has been designed to aspire each VOTER to be one of the best architects of modern India, who understand their duty as well as their right to vote for their nation, irrespective of their status, class, religion, cast, place, language, and gender. That is why, they are proud to sing together as in the song saying -– “MAIN BHARAT HOON – BHARAT HAI MUJHME – HUM BHARAT KE MATDATA HAIN – MATDAN DENE JAYENGE BHARAT KE LIYE…”