The Election Commission on Saturday blamed urban apathy for the drop in voting percentage in the first phase of polling in Gujarat on December 1. It appealed to urban voters to turn up better numbers in the second phase of polling on December 5. Cities such as Ahmedabad will vote in the second phase on Monday.
The EC said poor voter turnout in urban areas, such as Surat, Rajkot and Jamnagar, brought down the polling percentage. The EC said the trend was observed in urban constituencies in Himachal Pradesh in the polling held in that state on November 12. The urban assembly seat of Shimla in Himachal Pradesh recorded the lowest turnout in the state at 62.53 per cent, 13 percentage points less than the state average of 75.6 per cent. In Gujarat, the overall voter turnout was the lowest since 2007, with urban areas bringing down the overall percentage, which stood at 63.3 per cent, compared to 66.79 for phase one in 2017.
The Gandhidham seat in Kachchh district, which has industrial establishments, recorded the lowest polling percentage of 47.8 per cent, a decline of 6.34 per cent from 2017. The Karanj constituency of Surat was 5.37 per cent lower than its own low of 55.91 per cent in 2017. There was a visible difference in the turnouts between rural and urban constituencies. The difference is as wide as 34.85 percentage points between the rural constituency of Dediapada in the Narmada district (82.71 per cent) and the urban seat of Gandhidham (47.86 per cent).
Published 03 December 2022, 13:57 IST