 "AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi (left) and National Conference President Farooq Abdullah cast their vote during the fourth phase of Lok Sabha polls in Hyderabad and Srinagar, respectively, on Monday | Photos: PTI")
The fourth phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha (LS) elections recorded an average voter turnout of 63 per cent till 8 pm, the Election Commission (EC) said on Monday, which is lower than the 2019 voting percentage of a little over 69 per cent.
Held in 96 seats across 10 states and Union Territories (UTs), the highlight of Monday’s polling was an improved voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar seat at 37 per cent, which is the highest since the 1996 LS polls when 40.94 per cent voter turnout was registered, EC officials said.
However, a deflated turnout was witnessed in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, at 56.53 per cent against 69.31 per cent in 2019, where the Congress had appealed to the electorate to press NOTA (none of the above) after its candidate Akshay Kanti Bam withdrawn his nomination and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the last moment.
While Srinagar’s 37 per cent voting turnout was the lowest across the 96 seats that polled in Phase-IV, it was significantly better than the 14.43 per cent recorded in 2019 due to a call for poll boycott.
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There were 24 candidates, the highest in three decades, in the fray for the Srinagar seat, which was redrawn after the delimitation exercise was undertaken recently.
According to the EC, voters of Srinagar, Budgam, Ganderbal, Pulwama, and Shopian showed up in record numbers to cast their votes “in a show of faith and enthusiasm in the election process”. This was the first general election in the valley after the abrogation of Article 370 and the enactment of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.
Pulwama, which saw a terror attack days ahead of the 2019 LS elections, registered a turnout of 43.39 per cent.
The EC said with the conclusion of Phase-IV, the polling was now complete in 23 states and UTs and 379 parliamentary constituencies, which is 70 per cent of the total 543 seats. Polling was also held on all 175 Assembly seats of Andhra Pradesh and 28 of 146 Assembly seats of Odisha.
After a low voter turnout in the first three phases in Uttar Pradesh, it was relatively brisk across its 13 seats that polled on Monday. The voter turnout was tepid in Maharashtra and Bihar.
In Telangana, the EC booked BJP’s Hyderabad candidate K Madhavi Latha after a video clip showed her asking burqa-clad women voters to show their faces. Political parties in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh accused rival parties of resorting to electoral malpractices.
In the Kashmir Valley, in the first polls after the repeal of Article 370, the voter turnout was better than five years back. Polling in the other two constituencies in the valley is scheduled on 20 May (Baramulla) and 25 May (Anantnag). In 2019, amid a poll boycott call, the three constituencies saw the worst voter turnout across the country. Voting has already taken place in Jammu and Udhampur.
The improved voter turnout, a government official on election duty told Business Standard over phone from Srinagar, was “mainly due to the improvement in the law and order situation which has removed fear from the people’s mind and a desire among voters to get back normalcy and exercise their democratic rights.” “There was no fear of stone pelting which energised voters to exercise their rights,” the official, who wished not to be identified, said.
