Low turnouts: Election Commission data highlights continuing urban apathy to voting

Urban apathy -- as reflected in the lower voter turnouts in cities and towns of Gujarat -- pulled down the polling percentage in Phase 1 of Gujarat poll to 63.3%, with the gap as wide as 34.9% between the impressive 82.7% turnout in the rural constituency of Dediapada in Narmada district and the abysmal 47.8% voting in the urban Gandhi dham constituency in Kuchh district. In fact, not a single urban assembly constituency figures in the list of Gujarat's 26 constituencies that recorded more than 65% turnout on December 1.

The urban apathy in Gujarat is reminiscent of the trend seen in Himachal Pradesh, which went to polls on November 12, with its urban Shimla assembly constituency having recorded the lowest 62.5% turnout as compared to the state's average of 75.6%.

EC on Saturday shared that Surat, Rajkot and Jamnagar -- all urban centres of Gujarat -- recorded lower polling percentage than the state average of 63.3% in first phase of Gujarat elections. Rajkot West polled 57.1% votes, some 10.5 percentage points lower than the turnout in 2017. In Surat, all rural assembly seats recorded turnouts higher than the state's average, with the difference in polling percentage between the rural Mandvi AC (76.2% turnout) and the urban Karanj AC (50.5%) coming to more than 25 percentage points. In the case of Karanj, not only was the turnout nearly 13% lower than the state average but also 5.4% lower than its own low of 55.91% in 2017.


Noting the low voter turnout figures in urban centres with much concern, chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Saturday appealed to the voters of Gujarat to come out in large numbers in the second phase of polling, so as to compensate for low voting in first phase. The possibility of surpassing 2017 voting percentage now lies in their increased participation in Phase 2, he underlined.

Major cities and urban areas of Gujarat have not only recorded a decline in voting percentage as compared to 2017 elections, but have also voted much less than the 63.3% average turnout of the state.

To address the urban apathy trend across the country, the Commission has directed all state/UT chief electoral officers to identify low voter turnout ACs and polling stations in their jurisdiction to ensure targeted awareness interventions to increase voting percentage. As part of EC's efforts in this direction, CEC and election commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey had recently interacted with nodal officers of over 200 voter awareness forums from various industrial units in Pune. Pune had recorded one of the lowest voting percentages during the 2019 Lok Sabha election.