Is Voter Apathy at Its Peak? Haryana Records Lowest Turnout in 50 Years, Maharashtra in 39

New Delhi: As voting for the elections to the legislative assemblies of Haryana and Maharashtra drew to a close, the two states recorded a low overall voter turnout, pointing to a lack of enthusiasm among electors for the democratic exercise despite Election Commission of India’s (ECI) voter awareness campaigns.

According to ECI’s latest estimated voter turnout figures as of 7:15 pm on its website, 63.55 per cent turnout was recorded in Haryana, while only 56.65 per cent of the total electors came out to vote in Maharashtra.

Haryana has seen its lowest voter turnout in assembly elections since 1968 (57.26%) whereas Maharashtra's figures are lowest since the 1980 election (53.3%).

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Haryana had registered a voter turnout of 70.34 per cent whereas Maharashtra’s was 61.02 per cent.

In the previous state elections in 2014, Haryana had recorded a voter turnout of 76.13 per cent and has seen a fall of 12.58 percentage points this time. Similarly in Maharashtra, 63.08 per cent of electors had voted in the previous assembly elections, which has seen a decline of 6.43 percentage points in Monday’s polling exercise.

On the assembly level, Badshahpur and Panipat City constituencies in Haryana have seen the lowest voter turnout of 45 per cent followed by Faridabad at 48.2 per cent and Pataudi at 50 per cent. Badshahpur and Panipat City had registered a turnout of 68.56 per cent and 68.59 per cent, respectively in 2014.

In Maharashtra, Ulhasnagar constituency recorded the lowest turnout of 31.72 per cent, which had seen a turnout of 38.25 per cent in the previous assembly elections.

Nagpur south-west, from where Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis is contesting, recorded 49.25 per cent of votes, down from 56.44 per cent in 2014, while Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar’s constituency Karnal recorded 49.3 per cent of voter turnout down from 67.84 per cent in 2014.

There were a total of 1,83,90,525 registered electors in Haryana whereas 8,95,62,706 people had the right to vote in these elections in Maharashtra.

Moreover, a total of 19,425 polling stations were set-up in Haryana across 90 assembly seats compared to 16,244 stations in 2014 — an increase of nearly 19.6 per cent. Likewise in Maharashtra, 95,473 polling booths were set-up across 288 assembly constituencies, a 6.6 per cent increase over 90,403 booths in the previous assembly elections.