HALF OF B'LURU'S voters fail to turn up

Hameed Ashraf | NT

Bengaluru: Nearly half of Bengaluru's voters did not turn up to vote in the Lok Sabha elections on Friday, an indication of a growing disenchantment of urban voters with the promises made by politicians of all hues and the manner in which significant urban issues have been ignored year after year.

The Election Commission estimated the Karnataka turnout at 69.23 per cent but the percentage of voters who exercised their franchise in three urban constituencies in the city -- Bangalore Central, Bangalore North and Bangalore South -- was significantly lower.

The voter turnout in Bangalore Central was 52.81 per cent, Bangalore North - 54.42 per cent and Bangalore South - 53.15 per cent.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the turnout in Bengaluru Central was 54.32 per cent, Bengaluru North - 54.76 per cent and Bengaluru South - 53.70 per cent.

Election Commission officials were disappointed that the voter apathy persisted despite their vigorous efforts to increase participation.

"There is no explanation for it. That is the truth," a top EC official said.

According to poll officials, scorching summer heat is said to be one of the reasons for the people not turning up at polling booths in the city.

Some feel the non-voting Bengalureans are the ones who are fed up with the system and have given up. Others say that people take advantage of the poll day as a 'holiday' and leave the city which is not good.

Sources told News Trail that the statistics shared on Friday might not be just poll apathy, but also due to out-of-sync voter lists.

Barring postal votes and home voting, experts and civic group activists say errors in voter rolls like duplication, deletion, and mismatched entries that send voters from one booth to another are reasons for the low numbers.

‘Electoral rolls, booth mix-ups also to blame’

A human rights advocate Vinay K Sreenivasa said, "There are factors such as inaccuracy of the voters list. While many voters failed to find their names in the list, the names of people who had already passed away appeared. To fix this, citizens and the officials will have to join hands," he said.

Vinay Kumar, founder of 'reclaim constitution.in' pointed at the unprecedented migration due to the pandemic and the employment factor.

"Reasons like these shouldn’t be ignored. People end up having two voter IDs, and their names are duplicated," he claimed.

Touching on first-time voters, Kumar expressed concern about youths who do not even possess a Voter ID card.

"Half of the population is under 28 years of age. However those with Voter IDs in the 18-22 age category count for a single digit in percentage," he added. (With inputs from, Somwya Raju and Chandra Prabhu)