Din of Electioneering Ended in Gujarat, Election Commission Appealed to Voters to Shake Apathy and Cast Votes
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Dec 4: The din of high-voltage campaigning ended in 93 constituencies in 14 districts in north and central Gujarat at 5 P.M. on Saturday which will go to the polls in the second phase of the state Assembly elections on Monday. More than 800 candidates are in the fray in the second phase including the chief minister Bhupendra Patel Minister Bhupendra Patel from Ghatlodia in Ahmedabad city, Patidar leader Hardik Patel from Viramgam on the outskirts of Ahmedabad and Other Backward Class (OBC) leader Alpesh Thakor from Gandhinagar South. Both Hardik Patel and Thakor are Congress turncoats contesting for the BJP.
Besides Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Gandhinagar are two other major urban centres going to the polls in the second phase while five other municipal corporation areas in Gujarat figured in the first phase of polling on December 1 which had covered the Kutch-Saurashtra and the south Gujarat regions in the state.
Considering the low voter turn-out in the first phase of polling, the Election Commission has issued an appeal, particularly to the voters in the urban centres, to come out in strength to cast their votes to “reverse the urban apathy” noticed in the first phase.
“Surat, Rajkot and Jamnagar have recorded lower than the state average of voter turnout of 63.3 per cent in the first phase of Gujarat elections,” the Election Commission said in a statement. The state had seen a 66.75 per cent turnout in the first phase of the 2017 election.
“While voting percentage increased in many constituencies, the average voter turnout figure is dampened by urban apathy of these important districts just as during recently concluded general election to the legislative assembly of Himachal Pradesh, urban Assembly Constituency of Shimla recorded the lowest at 62.53 per cent (less by 13 percentage points) as against the state average of 75.6 per cent,” it said.
“Gujarat cities have shown a similar urban apathy trend during voting on 1st December 2022 in Assembly elections, thus pulling down the percentage of voting in the first phase,” the commission added.
The Gujarat BJP president C R Paatil, however, on Saturday pointed out that though overall voting percentage in the first phase of polling showed a decline compared to the 2017 elections in the same 89 constituencies which went to the polls on December 1, the total number of votes cast was actually 10 lakh votes more that the last elections. He also claimed that the increased votes would benefit the BJP.
“In Phase-1 of polling, 1.51 crore votes were cast. In the same 89 seats in 2017, 1.41 crore votes were cast, thus 10 lakh more votes were cast compared to the previous polls,” Paatil said. The percentage looked lower because the number of voters in the these constituencies had gone up much more than the turn-out in the last five years, he pointed out.
“In this same five-year period, the total number of voters in Gujarat rose by 55 lakh, from 4.35 crore to 4.9 crore, a rise of 13%. “In percentage terms, the voting looks less… But the total votes have increased,” he said. Figures shared by the Election Commission show that in Phase-1 voting on December 1, a turnout of 63.31% was recorded, which is lower than the 66.79% in 2017.
