Joining several big cities that reported a drop in voter turnout, all seven seats in the national capital and 10 seats in Haryana have witnessed a drop in the voter turnout as they went to polls last week on May 25, data from the Election Commission of India (ECI) shows.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the average voter turnout of Delhi was 60.6 per cent which dropped to 58.69 per cent this time. In Haryana, the drop is slightly more drastic – from 70.34 per cent in 2019 to 64.80 per cent now, the analysis done by News18 shows.
As per the latest numbers from the poll body, the sixth phase saw an average turnout of 63.37 per cent. In 2019, the 58 seats had an average voter turnout of 64.50 per cent. In the sixth phase, the bottom eight seats with the highest drop in voter turnout from 2019 were from Haryana.
None of these 17 seats crossed a turnout of 70 per cent. The highest turnout among these 17 seats was reported from Sirsa (69.77 per cent). In Haryana, all the 10 seats reported a turnout of over 60 per cent, a feat Delhi failed to achieve.
The seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi are: Chandni Chowk, East Delhi, New Delhi, North East Delhi, North West Delhi, South Delhi, and West Delhi. The 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana are: Ambala, Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Hisar, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Rohtak, Sirsa, and Sonipat.
Last week, ahead of the polling, News18 had reported that several cities that went for voting around the weekend in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls reported a drop in voter turnout.
As expected, none of the seats in Delhi crossed a turnout of 65 per cent – similar to 2019. In Delhi, the only seat that crossed a 60 per cent turnout was North-East (62.89 per cent). In 2019, at least four seats had reported a turnout above 60 per cent. The highest was from North-East Delhi at 63.86 per cent.
The highest drop in turnout in Delhi was reported from Chandni Chowk from 62.78 per cent in 2019 to 58.60 per cent now. While the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana reported better turnout than Delhi, the seats saw the highest drop in turnout when compared to 2019.
The gender turnout is also lower when compared to 2019. This time, the average male turnout in Delhi is 58.85 per cent against 60.70 per cent of 2019. Similarly, the female turnout dropped from 60.08 per cent to 58.11 per cent.
In Haryana, the male turnout has dropped to 66.20 per cent from 70.46 per cent in 2019 while the female has come down to 63.69 per cent from 69.77 per cent earlier.
Weekend Polling
Several cities across the country – Chennai, Bangalore, Ghaziabad, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra Mumbai, and Hyderabad – have reported lower voter turnout in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. All these cities and the majority of seats in it registered less than 60 per cent turnout, some even slipping below 50 per cent levels.
The common factor in voting across these cities was that the people had the option of clubbing voting holidays with usual weekend offs.
In the 024 election so far, at least 10 Lok Sabha seats have seen a turnout below 50 per cent, including Hyderabad (48.48 per cent), Secunderabad (49.04 per cent), Mathura (49.41 per cent), Thane (49.81 per cent) and Ghaziabad (49.88 per cent). Most of these cities have a majority of the working class population.
Heatwave a major contributor
The maximum temperature in most parts of Delhi and Haryana has been above 45 degrees Celsius for the past 10-12 days. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had last week issued a severe heatwave red alert for the two states, with no scope of improvement in temperature in the coming days.
The next and the last phase of polling is on June 1. The counting of votes will be done on June 4.
Explore in-depth coverage of Lok Sabha Election 2024 Voter Turnout, Upcoming Phase, Results Date, Exit Poll And Much More At News18 Website
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