LS polls: From 69.9% to 65.5%, first phase polling sees drop in vote share

Of the 102 seats that went to polls in the first phase on Friday, 92 recorded a drop in voter turnout, while nine seats showed an increase.

The decline in vote share on these seats is 4.4 per cent, from 69.9 per cent five years ago to 65.5 per cent in 2024.

The nine seats with a higher voter turnout than in 2019 are Assam’s Jorhat and Lakhimpur, Bastar in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra’s Chandrapur, Shillong in Meghalaya, and Tamil Nadu’s Vellore, Coimbatore, Kallakurichi, and Salem. In some cases, the decline in voter turnout was in fractions — Nagpur, Meghalaya’s Tura, and Tripura West.

The decline in voter turnout in the Nagaland Lok Sabha constituency was over 25 per cent because of calls for a poll boycott across six districts. It was also sharp in Manipur due to poll violence, where the Election Commission ordered a re-poll in 11 polling booths.

As the comparison between 2014 and 2019 shows, the voter turnout is not only lower than in 2019 but also lower than in 2014 in some of the larger states where polling took place, such as Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Among smaller states, the voter turnout in 2024 is lower than in 2014.