Parishad elections see dip in voter turnout

Hyderabad: The voter turnout in the Parishad polls has come down when compared to the Gram Panchayat elections being held in January this year due to several reasons.

According to the report of the State Election Commission, the number of voters who turned out to cast their vote is 45.32 lakhs in the first phase and the poll percentage is 76.80.

The number of male voters who cast their votes is 20.94 lakh and number of female voters is 21.47 lakhs. About 50,000 female voters have cast their vote than the male voters.

The voter turnout in the Gram Panchayat polls was 88 per cent. As many as 1.37 crore voters have exercised their right to vote.

However, going by the trend in the first phase of the Parishad polls, the number of votes to be polled in the three phases may reach 1.18 crore.

The district-wise poll percentage in the Parishad polls ranged between 66 per cent and 86 per cent.

Mancherial district has the lowest turnout with 66 per cent. The highest polling was recorded in Bhongir district with 86 per cent.

Higher turnout of voters, above 80 per cent, was seen in Bhongir (86.19), Khammam (85.5), Suryapet (85.46), Nalgonda (82.80) and Sangareddy (81.64) districts.

The low turnout, below 70 per cent, has been seen in Mancherial (66.86), Mahabubnagar (66.9), Nagarkurnool (69.8), and Bhupalapalli (69.6) districts.

Leaders of the parties said that the low turnout could be attributed to hot summer. As the polls were held in the middle of the summer, several villages have been experiencing severe heat wave conditions and forced the villagers to stay indoors.

Most of those who voted came out in the morning and the afternoon has seen less polling. No crowds were seen after 5 pm like in the Assembly elections.

Apart from this, holding the elections on party symbols was another reason for the low poll percentage in Parishad elections.

The people who did not follow any major political party have stayed away from the voting. Like in GP polls, people living in the towns and cities have not gone to their respective villages to cast their votes.

During the GP polls lakhs of urban dwellers who have their vote registered in the villages have gone to their own places to cast their votes.

Several leaders said that the youngsters have not shown much interest to cast their vote as they consider the Parishad polls as unimportant and has nothing to do with their issues.