The final tally of voters who cast their vote in Nagpur Lok Sabha elections, declared by the district administration showed a rise in number of voters, but there was a marginal drop in per centage of voters. The District Administration had taken a lot of efforts and termed the endeavour as ‘Mission Distinction’. The administration had vowed to have a voter per centage, over 70%. Various organisations, institutions conducted voter awareness programmes. Various business groups had appealed people to exercise their franchise, calling it the biggest democratic festival. When asked the reasons behind the low voting per centage this year, District Collector and District Returning Officer Dr Vipin Itankar, explained, “If we compare the voting per centage of 2019 and 2024 then there is not much decrease. In 2019 it was 54.74%, while this year it has gone down to 54.30%. The number of voters has increased. Last time 11,82,507 voters exercised their franchise while this time, the voter turnout increased to 12,07,344. It means there is a rise of 24,837 voters.”

 

 

 

Another reason according to Dr Itankar is the dip in last minute voter turnout. “We have observed, that usually the voters approaching polling centres rise gradually from morning to evening. In the past elections, we witnessed sudden surge in the number of voters turning up to the polling booths towards the end of voting time. This year the same did not happen. We had appealed people to come to the booths in the morning hours, considering the rise in temperature. Accordingly, people queued up in the morning, but after 1.30 pm, it started decreasing and this trend continued till the end of voting time.

 

At majority polling stations the voters turned up in very low numbers or negligible, after 4 pm. If one takes the statistics of voters turnout from year 2004 till 2019 into account, then one would notice it was lowest in 2009. It showed improvement in 2014. It again went down in 2019. As compared to the voting per centage in 2019, the decrease in per centage is not much in 2024 when voting was held on April 19. As per the booklet issued by Maharashtra Government, the voting per centage in 2004 was 48.37. In 2009 it was 43.45%, in 2014 it registered sudden rise to 57.08% and in 2019 it has gone down to 54.74%. This year the final per centage comes to 54.30.