EC efforts to increase voting percentage fall flat

Mumbai: Despite all efforts of the state branch of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to increase the polling percentage, the efforts seem to have failed as the polling percentage has decreased slightly on an average in comparison with the last general elections of 2014.

However, political observers said that they couldn’t compare the figure with the 2014 general election poll percentage, as the situation was altogether different.  

According to the figures released by the state branch of the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday, Chandrapur and Yavatmal-Washim witnessed a marginal increase; while Wardha, Ramtek, Nagpur, Bhandara-Gondia witnessed an up to three per cent decrease. The figure of Gadchiroli constituency had not been released, as the election personnel did not reach four polling stations there and the poll would be taken on these polling stations later.    

According to the poll figure, the voter turnout this time was 54.74 per cent as compared to 57.12 per cent in 2014. So, 2.38 per cent less voters had exercised their franchise in the city of oranges.

In 2009, the voter turnout was 43.40 per cent. In Bhandara-Gondia, the voter turnout in 2019 was 68.72 per cent i.e. 4.04 per cent less than the 2014 general election. Only 13 per cent transgender voters participated in the electoral process.

An official of the state branch of the ECI said that 24 transgender voters exercised their franchise out of the total 187 transgender voters in all six seats.       

Political observer and senior journalist Abhay Deshpande said, “One has to compare the current poll percentage with the 2009 general election figure as in 2014, the situation was very different due to the Narendra Modi wave. The huge turnout of people in rural parts of the state is due to distress in the farm sector. Moreover, it also reflects anti-incumbency against the central and state government.”