JOIN USA little over half of 58.6 lakh registered voters in the Bangalore North, South and Central parliamentary constituencies exercised their franchise on Thursday.
The final compilation of the voters’ turnout by the Election Commission has revealed that the three constituencies clocked an average turnout of 55.95 per cent while the State average stood at 67.28 per cent.
The high-profile, Bangalore South constituency, which witnessed H N Ananth Kumar of the BJP and Nandan Nilekani of the Congress, use every trick in the book to woo voters, registered the lowest turnout of 55.69 per cent in the State.
Incidently, both the parties had brought their big guns to campaign in the constituency. While Congress chose its vice-president Rahul Gandhi to campaign in Basavanagudi, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi campaigned in Bommanahalli, which borders the IT hub of Electronics City.
Modi, in fact, made fervent appeal to the voters to come out and vote. Ironically, Bommanahalli has registered one of the lowest voting percentages among the Assembly segments in the State. Basavanagudi, known for high density of educated electorate, registered a modest voting percentage of 55.46.
Bangalore Central and North have fared slightly better by clocking 55.7 pc and 56.47 pc, respectively. Sarvajnanagar in Bangalore Central has the dubious distinction of clocking the lowest poll percentage (52) across all the Assembly segments in Bangalore.
The bright side
On the bright side, the three constituencies have covered much ground, voting wise, since 2009 polls where they clocked an average of 47 per cent. The three constituencies had registered an average turnout of 57 per cent in the 2013 Assembly polls which hasn’t changed much in this year’s general election.
Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha said: “The gap between voting percentage of the Assembly polls in 2013 (State average was 72 per cent) and the present Lok Sabha polls (average of 67.28 per cent) is about five per cent. But in the case of Bangalore it is only around two percent. Bangalore has maintained its voting pattern of 2013 Assembly polls.”