While the voting percentage in Uttar Pradesh dipped marginally in comparison to the 2017 Assembly polls, the Election Commission (EC) has claimed that the voting has, so far, remained satisfactory overall. Assembly elections in UP have, thus far, been held in 292 seats in five phases. The last two phases — sixth and seventh — will be held on Thursday and Monday, respectively, while the results will be declared on March 10.
“There has been an increase of about 2-3 percentage points of vote share, so far, as compared to the 2012 assembly polls, while in comparison to the 2017 elections, the vote share has dipped by nearly 1-2 percentage points. This must be looked at through the lens of prevailing conditions. The entire machinery of the Election Commission worked extensively to increase people’s participation despite Covid restrictions. Due to the Covid protocols, rallies and several other programmes could not be held. Despite such problems, the message of the importance of voting was passed on to households. Also, the polling has been very peaceful, so far, and there have been no demands for re-polling. We hope people will turn up in large numbers in the remaining phases,” said Additional Chief Electoral Officer (ACEO) Bhram Dev Ram Tiwari.
According to officials, in about 25% of the seats, vote share has increased by nearly 1%, while in the remaining seats, the vote share has either been similar to the 2017 elections or gone down.
In districts with high polling, the voting percentage was maintained. For instance, Kairana had recorded 69.56% of voter turnout in 2017, which increased to 75.12% this election. According to locals, a large population of Muslims, including women, stepped out of their houses to cast vote this time. Thana Bhawan in Shamli recorded a 65.3% voter turnout, nearly 3% less than the previous election. This is the same constituency where sitting Sugarcane Minister Suresh Rana had defeated RLD’s Ashraf Ali in the 2012 elections with a margin of merely 200 votes. Similarly, both Amroha and Saharanpur voted more than 70% and are among the districts with the highest polling figures.
However, as the polling moved eastward, the average voting percentages declined, too. In the first phase, the voter turnout was 62.43%, which increased to 64.42% in the second phase. In the following phases, however, the average vote share came down by nearly 2%, with the fifth phase recording a turnout of 57.32%.
There are more than 14.66 lakh first-time voters in this UP Assembly election. Overall, more than 52 lakh names were added to the electoral roll, taking the voters’ tally to over 15.02 crore.
All competing parties in UP have interpreted the voting trend, so far, in their favour. Addressing a public rally in Basti, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed that “the people have already decided that the Chief Minister (Yogi Adityanath) will be going back to his mutt (Gorakhpur Mutt)”.
On the other hand, Adityanath in his several rallies stated that the BJP would again form a majority government in the state.
In the remaining two phases, high profile constituencies like Gorakhpur Urban from where Adityanath is in the fray, and Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency, will go to polls on March 3 and 7, respectively.