Will Bengaluru’s turnout go up?

In 2014, the three core constituencies were placed last among 28 seats in the State

April 17, 2019 08:41 pm | Updated April 18, 2019 08:07 am IST

 Bengaluru / Karnataka : Polling officials franchising thier Vote by postal ballet before heading to their respective polling booths for the 2019 Lok sabha elections in Bengaluru on Wednesday on 17 April 2019. Photo : V Sreenivasa Murthy/ The Hindu

Bengaluru / Karnataka : Polling officials franchising thier Vote by postal ballet before heading to their respective polling booths for the 2019 Lok sabha elections in Bengaluru on Wednesday on 17 April 2019. Photo : V Sreenivasa Murthy/ The Hindu

As another election dawns upon the city, questions arise on whether citizens will come out to vote on Thursday. While election officials squarely blame the city’s habit of taking a holiday rather than turning up at the voting booth, activists point out to a ‘bloated’ electoral list where a good turnout is automatically downplayed due to ‘non-existent’ votes.

In 2014, three core constituencies (Bangalore North, Bangalore Central and Bangalore South) were placed last among 28 seats in the State in terms of turnout. There is a 21.5 percentage point difference in the turnout between Dakshina Kannada, which tops the list with 77.15%, and Bangalore Central, which languished at the bottom with 55.63%.

Going further back, the three constituencies were in the bottom four in 2009. Before delimitation, Bangalore North and South constituencies have consistently recorded the lowest turnout since 1998.

One indicator that low turnouts is linked to urban densities can be seen in voting interest in urban assembly segments situated in ‘rural’ parliamentary constituencies. Of the eight assembly segments in Bangalore Rural constituency, Bangalore South and Rajarajeshwari Nagar — most of which are in BBMP limits — and rapidly-urbanising Anekal recorded the lowest turnout compared to other segments in 2014.

There is a stark 24.6 percentage point gap in turnouts between Bangalore South and Magadi in this constituency.

In Chikkaballapur parliamentary constituency. the semi-urbanised Yelahanka assembly segment recorded the lowest turnout among eight assembly segments.

Awareness programmes

Manjunath Prasad, BBMP Commissioner and District Election Officer, said they had been working under the Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) program for six months to change voters’ attitudes. “There is a sense of apathy, or that one can go on a long holiday. The message is that if you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to criticise the government,” he said.

Sanjiv Kumar, Chief Electoral Officer, hoped that though Bengaluru was a ‘concern’ in terms of turnout, they hoped for a better performance considering their awareness programmes had reached ‘every lane and educational institution’.

Electoral rolls

P.G. Bhat, an electoral roll analyst, says that urban voting turnout is squarely linked to the quality of electoral rolls. “When you compare Bengaluru’s rolls with that of Kolkata’s, you find more errors in Bengaluru. It is not a coincidence that Bengaluru’s turnout is lower than Kolkata’s. Officials claim that the city has 90 lakh voters. If one were to assume 40% of the population is below the age of 18 or can’t vote, then the city has 1.5 crore inhabitants, which is impossible,” he said.

Despite deletion of over 2 lakh names, duplications in the 8,514 parts of the city’s electoral rolls contain duplications or inclusion of those who have died.

Mr. Bhat’s analysis shows that more than 51% of the parts had seen more than 2% of votes deleted in one ‘part’ of the electoral rolls, or 4% more additions in a part. “In Anekal, for instance, some parts have seen deletion of more than 60% of the names. This is done without reason and is illegal,” said Mr. Bhat.

Shoddy entry of data sees members of one household being able to vote in different booths, or tenants listed in more than one house — current and previous residences, he said.

In Mahadevapura, volunteers in the Million Voter Rising campaign to ensure all eligible persons in the area can vote noted some unusual deletions.

“There are hardly any block-;evel officers to verify voter lists. Many names were suddenly deleted without any notice while the lists continue to be riddled with fake entries or duplicates,” says Anjali Sani who is part of the campaign.

In the 2018 assembly elections, she said that despite their apartment-wise calculations showing more than 75% polling, the entire constituency ended with an abysmal 56% polling.

Cross-verified lists

Mr. Prasad denies that errors in the rolls have an all-pervasive impact on turnout percentage. “This time around, we had 8,500 officers physically check if voters were present in the house. We have deleted names of only those who had shifted houses, and it is the responsibility of the voter to ensure a form is submitted for inclusion in the list. It could be a small percentage of voters who were denied voting due to booth mismatch. It doesn’t explain why 45% of the city doesn’t turn up at the polling booths every election.”

Can we buck the trend?

Turnout data shows that Bengaluru’s polling percentage dips between Assembly and parliamentary elections.

In 2014, despite the ‘Modi wave’ that saw surges in voting across the country, the city saw just 56.24% voting in its 28 assembly segments during the parliamentary elections. This was lower than the 58.28% turnout recorded in 2013 in the assembly polls.

The city’s polling percentage decreased by 2.22 percentage points between 2009 (45.39% turnout in the parliamentary polls) and 2008 (47.61% in assembly polls). In 2004 and 1999, elections were held simultaneously.

In 2018, the 24 assembly segments that are part of the three parliamentary constituencies in Bengaluru had a turnout of just 54%.

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