Only 36 out of every 100 voters in Mumbai’s posh Colaba assembly area, falling under the Mumbai South Lok Sabha seat, turned up for voting on Monday. Mumbai South, nearby Thane, and Kalyan emerged as the constituencies that saw the lowest turnouts in the fifth phase of the general elections on May 20.
In total, 49 Lok Sabha seats went to polls on Monday. Just 10 of these saw higher turnouts than in 2019, the data from the Election Commission of India analysed by News18 shows. Among the seats with jumps in turnouts from 2019 were Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla, Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki, and Maharashtra’s Bhiwandi. In Baramulla, the turnout went up by 24 percentage points, and in Barabanki and Bhiwandi, it was over three percentage points.
On the other hand, at least ten Lok Sabha seats reported more than a four-percentage-point drop in voter turnout from 2019 – with Odisha’s Aska at the top. This time, the seat reported a 60.78% turnout, as of Tuesday morning, down from 65.78% in 2019. The list also includes Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, Maharashtra’s Mumbai North, Jharkhand’s Koderma, Odisha’s Sundargarh, West Bengal’s Barrackpore, Bangaon, Hooghly and Howrah, and Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi.
Seats with highest, lowest turnouts
Maharashtra’s Kalyan was the seat with the lowest voter turnout, 47.08%. Mumbai South (47.7%) and Thane (49.81%) from the state were also not far away.
The top four seats with the highest turnouts were from West Bengal – Arambagh (79.5%), Bangaon (78.01%), Hooghly (77.84%), and Uluberia (77.74%).
In 2019 also, these four seats were at the top but all had turnouts of over 80%.
Last time, Baramulla was in last place with a 34.6% turnout. It was followed by Kalyan (45.31%), Thane (49.38%), and Mumbai South (51.58%).
Although Kalyan had been the seat with the lowest turnout, in 2024, the figure improved by almost 2 percentage points – from 45.31% in 2019 to 47.08% this time. Similarly, Thane too has shown improvement – from 49.38% to 49.81%.
As of Tuesday morning, the average voter turnout as per the Election Commission of India (ECI), for the 49 seats, stood at 60.51% – the lowest among all the phases so far. In the previous four phases, the turnout figures were updated by the ECI days later, as and when it got data from the centres. However, the increase has been marginal.
Story of phases so far
For the first phase, held on April 19, the initial average turnout was 65.5% which improved to 66.14% later. For the second phase also, the initial figure was 65.5% which grew to 66.71%. In the third phase, held on May 7, the turnout initially was 64.4%, which increased to 65.68% a few days later. In the fourth round, held on May 13, the improvement was from 67.25% to 69.16%.
In 2019, the average turnout for all the phases was 67.4%. Till the first four phases, the average turnout this time was 66.95% which has dropped to 65.6% now.
Two phases – on May 25 and June 1 – are left in the Lok Sabha polls before the counting of votes on June 4.
Explore in-depth coverage of Lok Sabha Election 2024 Schedule, Voter Turnout, Upcoming Phase And Much More At News18 Website
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