Nagpur disappoints for third consecutive election, achieving 53.90% turnout on Friday

In Nagpur, the voter turnout for the Lok Sabha polls has decreased for the third consecutive time, with the constituency recording a turnout of 53.90% on Friday. In 2019, the voter participation stood at 54.94%, whereas it was 57.12% in 2014.

The reason for the continuous slide depends on whom one asks. For authorities, the reasons range from hot weather to voters working outside the city, to some simply enjoying a holiday.

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Challenges and Concerns Surrounding Voter Participation in Nagpur

Politicians feel it is related to voters not being able to find their names in the list, while some family members are allotted separate centres far away, which deters them from going to vote. General citizens however feel that those who did not get their finger inked are simply being ‘lazy’.

Nagpur district collectorate had pushed the 75%-plus voting campaign, counting on first-time voters plus the regular lot to descend on polling booths.

A national party’s worker said, “Since morning, our booth level workers have been getting calls from citizens that their names are missing from the list.”

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Impact of “Voter Disturb” Tactics on Voter Turnout

A former corporator said another factor for the low turnout was what they call in street lingo ‘voter disturb’. This grammatically incorrect slang means any method used to harass the voter legally.

He explained, “We had multiple cases where a family of four was spread over two polling booths, both far from each other. Let’s say you have 20,000 families in an assembly constituency with four members each. Then through this ‘voter disturb’ you have sent 40,000 members to a different polling booths. Not everyone has the time to transport members to different places or find the locations.”

He added that these issues deter voters, who feel it’s not worth going to vote. The corporator said, “If such a voter disturb happens in each of the six assembly constituencies, then you have almost 2.5 lakh voters staying away from voting.”