Social media abuzz with poor voter turnout theories

Did migrants in the city abandon Lok Sabha elections here on Thursday only to exercise franchises in their respective home towns? Now that’s what many critics cogitate why the city remained laggard in terms of voter turnout.

After the polling got over on Thursday, social media platforms were abuzz with theories justifying the reasons for the shrunken polling rate. All three constituencies in the city have averaged a mediocre polling percentage of 53. Bangalore South recorded 53.48%, lowest in first phase polling for LS elections in the state, followed by Bangalore Central 54.29% and Bangalore North 54.62%.

A critic said that the rural area witnessed high turnout as migrants to the city left to their home towns to vote. “The migrants in Bengaluru would have gotten their voter ID cards here only to seek the facilities from the government. But when it comes to voting, they go to their home towns where they are emotionally connected. This is one of the major reasons for a low voter turnout in Bengaluru,” wrote Kavi Raj on Facebook. “A series of holidays was a blessing in disguise for them,” he added.

Another critic, Srikanta Patremara opined that many Bengalureans think it will dent their dignity if they stand in queues at government institutions to vote. “They find voting is a poor man’s duty. All that they (Bengalureans) like is pubs, parties and weekend mastis,” he said.

He also pointed out that many citizens made use of the long weekend gap for their personal trips.

“The number (voting percentage) released by the EC is really low, but that number is inaccurate. Why? Because the baseline itself is wrong. For every 100 voters in the voter list, some 5-10 are duplicate entries. We have many voters that show up more than 5 times,” wrote Srinivas Alavilli, co-founder of Citizens for Bengaluru on Facebook.

“Our voter registration system is bad. Thousands of people who want to vote cannot (exercise their right) as there are thousands of fake votes and invalid entries (age 400 etc),” he wrote.

He further said that there is a section of voters that no longer think voting is important or makes any difference.

N Manjunath Prasad, the BBMP commissioner, said that the polling percentage was pretty decent despite there was a long weekend this time. “All the campaigns and awareness programs we organised bore fruit,” he said.