After seven phases, one thing is absolutely clear: there is a voter wave this election. The aggregate turnout so far is 66.2%, compared with 57.41% in 2009.
And the state leading the spike in voter turnout is Gujarat, where 62% cast their votes compared with 47.89% in 2009, a 14 percentage point jump. This was Gujarat’s highest turnout in the past 47 years, second only to 63.77% the state recorded in the 1967 LS polls.
In Gujarat, it was Narendra Modi’s constituency, Vadodara, which recorded one of the highest turnouts in the state: at 72%, it was a 23 percentage point jump over the lacklustre 49% it logged in 2009. This surge in voter enthusiasm could well be because Modi is BJP’s PM pick.
The filing of an FIR against Modi over his televised statement and his flashing of BJP’s ‘lotus’ symbol just after voting in Ahmedabad seem to have made little difference to voter enthusiasm given the 62.3% turnout in the city. Adjoining Gandhinagar, from where senior BJP leader L K Advani is seeking a re-election, witnessed 62% polling.
Interestingly, Priyanka Gandhi’s high-voltage campaign in her mother Sonia Gandhi’s constituency Rae Bareli did not really enthuse voters to come out in large numbers. According to the figure put out by the EC on Wednesday evening, Rae Bareli recorded 51.85% polling, which was just a modest improvement over the 48.32% turnout in 2009.
All over Uttar Pradesh, where 14 seats went to polls, the turnout improved to 57.1% from 47.99%, but this was lower than the turnout in the earlier phases of this election, possibly due to soaring temperatures. Lucknow, where BJP president Rajnath Singh is pitted against Congress’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi, saw 55.22% turnout, while Jhansi, from where firebrand BJP leader Uma Bharati is in the fray, recorded a much higher turnout of 62.88%.
Polling in West Bengal for nine seats saw a high turnout of 81.35%, which is expected to go up further to 83%. In 2009, the state had witnessed 81.91% polling.
Punjab, where the ruling SAD is battling anti-incumbency, saw a 73% turnout, the highest ever. Bihar’s seven seats saw 60% turnout, a big jump over the 45% in 2009. In Telangana, where simultaneous polls to 17 Lok Sabha seats and 119 assembly seats were held, the turnout hit 70%, as against 67.71% in 2009.
However, polling in militancy-hit Srinagar remained low at 25.62% compared with 25.49% in 2009.
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