MUMBAI: A multi-city campaign 'Dabaa ke Bajaa’ has been unveiled by Red FM. It will target the youth and promote the message to vote, especially to first time voters. The network is supporting the Election Commission of India (ECI), which shares the mission.

Red FM COO Nisha Narayanan said, "’Dabaa Ke Bajaa’ is our attempt at channelising the energy of the people in all parts of India into one simple, and yet difficult act- pressing the button on the voting machine."

'Dabaa Ke Bajaa’ will have Red FM RJs represent themselves as 'Youth Ambassadors’ of the Election Commission of India, in their respective cities. One RJ per city will take up the responsibility of bringing on board the entire population in his or her city to pledge to vote this time. A series of on-air and on-ground activities is being planned to engage listeners on the same.

Red FM marketing GM Rajat Uppal said, "We have been in talks with the Election Commission of India for a couple of months. The campaign is divided into various phases depending on the cities. We are planning to have an extensive campaign on digital media as well. In the next two months, Red FM will push the campaign at various levels."

In key cities Red FM has also put up an innovation- 'Dabaa Ke Bajaa Pledge-meter’ which showcases the real-time consolidated number of people who have joined the campaign and pledged to vote across the various platforms. In addition to telephone lines, SMS pledges and Facebook applications, Red FM also has promoters going across the cities with tablets that have a specially designed application to get people to pledge. The number reflected on the hoarding is the cumulative of pledges received across all platforms. The initial response has been fantastic and Red FM has received over five million people taking the pledge.

Apart from Red FM’s RJs like Malishka, Ronak and so on, RJs from Radio Mirchi like RJ Dhvanit and RJ Kunal from Ahmedabad; RJ Kshitij from Baroda; RJ Rahil from Surat and RJ Nishit from Rajko have also been appointed radio ambassadors. They will be visiting colleges and events held in malls, where most of the youth are present.

ECI DG Akshay Rout said, "We are proud to have taken Red FM on-board to promote voter participation. With over 814 million registered voters this time, there is no better medium than radio to reach out to the masses and get them to cast their vote. It is very encouraging to see a private radio station show such tremendous enthusiasm to get maximum people to vote. We are focusing on enhancing voter participation in all the states and UTs and hope to achieve the same with support from all sections of people."

The 16th Lok Sabha elections will commence from the second week of April and may spread over six to seven phases, according to various reports. The probable dates for the commencement of polling are between 7 and 10 April. The 2009 polls were held in five phases from 16 April to 13 May.