Voters wait in a queue to cast their votes at a polling station, Sukhrali area in Gurugram district of Haryana during the State Assembly elections on October 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
Despite the various steps taken by the local administration to address urban voter apathy, including setting up of special polling booths in high-rise societies and deployment of NSS cadets to help senior citizens and PwD electors, Gurugram district, comprising four Assembly constituencies, recorded the second lowest turnout in Haryana during the Assembly polls on October 5, finishing marginally ahead of neighbouring Faridabad.
As per the latest figures available on the Election Commission’s Turnout App, Haryana recorded 67.90% turnout, which beats the Lok Sabha 2024 voter turnout of 64.8% in the State by over three percentage points. However, Gurugram and Faridabad finished at the bottom with 57.96% and 56.49% voter turnout respectively.
Badshahpur and Gurugram, the two predominantly urban constituencies in Gurugram district, recorded the abysmally poor turnout of 54.26% and 51.81% respectively.
126 special booths
As part of its efforts to improve the participation of the urban voter, the Gurugram district administration had set up 126 special polling booths across the four constituencies during the Assembly polls which included the highest number of 71 booths in Badshahpur followed by 42 in Gurugram. Besides, nine such booths were set up in Pataudi and four in Sohna.
Of the total 113 special booths in Badshahpur and Gurugram Assembly segments put together, 42 booths recorded less than 40% voter turnout, highlighting the indifferent attitude of the urban electorate towards their participation in the voting process. Interestingly, the booth nos. 413 and 385, catering to parts of Sector 56 and 43, recorded the lowest turnout among the 126 special booths with 28.12% and 29.33% respectively. As many as eight special booths recorded the voter turnout of more than 60% with booth no. 501 in Badshahpur, located in Sector 77, recording the highest turnout at 66.77%.
Deputy Commissioner, Gurugram, Nishant Yadav, told The Hindu that the district administration had taken a string of measures to create awareness among the electorate and had expected the turnout to be around 65-70%, but the actual turnout was much lower. “We held meetings with the residents’ welfare associations to create the awareness and also held programmes in 22 colleges and universities across the district to reach out to around 40,000 young voters. But the result was not as expected. We will analye the booth-wise turnout for the special booths in high-rises to find out the reasons for the poor response and take the corrective measures next time,” said Mr. Yadav.
Published – October 07, 2024 06:43 am IST