Fewer People Went to Vote in Delhi-NCR, Gurgaon Recorded 4.21% Drop in Voter Turnout

New Delhi: Even as the overall voter turnout registered a marginal increase over the 2014 figure after five phases, fewer people turned up to vote in the Delhi-NCR region in this Lok Sabha election as compared to the previous one. This dip in voter turnout – of over 4 per cent – was led by Delhi and Gurgaon.

On a constituency level, the Delhi-NCR region comprises Faridabad and Gurgaon in Haryana, Ghaziabad and Gautam Budhha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, along with seven constituencies in Delhi.

While Ghaziabad and Gautam Budhha Nagar voted on April 11 in the first phase, Delhi and the two Haryana seats went to polls on May 12 with the rest of the state.

Among the total 11 constituencies, the New Delhi seat registered the lowest voter turnout of 56.91 per cent, according to the Election Commission turnout report updated till 10pm Sunday. This was also the largest decline of 8.2 per cent from 65.11 per cent in 2014.

In 2014, all seven constituencies in Delhi had witnessed a voter turnout of more than 61 per cent, with Chandni Chowk topping the chart at 67.87 per cent. However, only three constituencies – Chandni Chowk, East Delhi, and North East Delhi – could achieve that feat this time.

The voter turnout in Gurgaon, at 64.88 per cent, was the worst outside of Delhi and sixth worst overall among the 11 Delhi-NCR constituencies. It recorded a drop of 4.21 per cent from 71.58 per cent in the 2014 polls.

Guragaon parliamentary constituency comprises of nine assembly segments spread across three districts. These are Bawal and Rewari in Rewari district, Pataudi, Badshahpur, Gurgaon and Sohna in Gurgaon district and Nuh, Ferozepur Jhirka and Punahana in Mewat district. While Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Rao Inderjit Singh is said to enjoy a good support base across the Gurgaon district, Congress candidate Capt. Ajay Singh and Jannayak Janta Party’s (JJP) Dr. Mehmood Khan are popular in Rewari and Mewat districts, respectively.

Among these assembly constituents, the Gurgaon segment recorded the poorest voter turnout at 61.16 per cent, while Bawal had the highest turnout of 75.64 per cent.

All of these 11 seats were won by the BJP in 2014.

Delhi Chief Electoral officer Ranbir Singh on Sunday admitted that the turnout did not meet expectations despite the awareness campaigns by the commission.

The reports of EVM malfunctioning, hundreds of which were replaced, and voters' names missing from the voter list may have affected the polling across several booths in the entire region.

"Several awareness campaigns were carried out. They should have checked names before going to vote. If their names were not there they should have filled Form 6. We were accepting forms till April 13," Singh told the media over missing names from the voting lists.