Worried over dip in voting, Election Commission plans to boost turnout

NEW DELHI: Concerned over the drop of nearly three percentage points in overall voter turnout in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections this year as compared to 2019, with the decline recorded in 19 of the 21 states and Union territories that voted on Friday, the Election Commission will be making a mid-poll correction in its strategy to boost turnout.
Though the polling percentage has inched up since Friday as more reports from remote polling stations came in - with the latest figure now 66% and expected to rise further by at least 0.1-0.2 percentage points - it is still way short of the 69.2% turnout recorded in 2019 for the same 102 constituencies where polling has been completed.
Conceding that the EC "is very concerned about the dip in turnout", one of its senior functionaries said that voter enthusiasm, though apparent, was not enough to bring them to the polling stations. "EC had made tremendous efforts to push up turnout. There were targeted interventions like the turnout implementation plan (TIP) under the Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation Program (SVEEP), voting appeals by celebrities roped in as EC ambassadors, tie up with BCCI to use IPL as a platform to motivate voters and improving polling booth facilities to make voting a pleasant experience, but they seem to have fallen short," said the EC functionary.
Sources told TOI that the EC is analysing the reasons for the lower turnout. "The issue was discussed in meetings through the weekend and we will be coming out with more strategies by Monday under the turnout implementation programme," said the EC functionary.
As per sources, the possible reasons for lower turnout may be the summer heat as polling this time started eight days later than in 2019; apathy caused by many voters perceiving the result to be a foregone conclusion; and a clash with the festival and wedding season.

Among the states and UTs, only three states - Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya and Sikkim - saw higher turnouts as compared to 2019. Nagaland witnessed 57.7% turnout, over 25 percentage points less than in 2019. The decline in Manipur was 7.7 percentage points, in Madhya Pradesh over 7 percentage points and in Rajasthan and Mizoram over 6 percentage points.
Bihar recorded the lowest turnout at 49.2%; even if this did not take the EC by surprise as the poll covered a Left-wing extremism-affected area, the corresponding turnout in 2019 was higher at 53.47%. UP too saw the turnout slip to 61.1% from 66.5%.
The two states where polling has been completed - Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand - saw the turnouts going south as well. In Tamil Nadu, it fell to 69.7% to 72.1% despite the big-ticket campaign that saw DMK and BJP trading barbs over the controversial 'sanatan dharma' comment by Tamil Nadu minister Udhaynidhi Stalin. Uttarakhand too saw lesser voter enthusiasm, with the turnout there dipping to 57.2% from 61.5% in 2019.
West Bengal, which has been a high-turnout state, saw an impressive turnout at 81.9% but even this was less than the 2019 figure of 84.7%.
EC sources said it is difficult to identify the category of voters who may have contributed to the lower turnout. "We do not profile the voters and count them as separate categories. The only solution is to encourage and mobilise all the categories with tailored inteventions to shun apathy and be counted," said an EC official.
The commission is expected to come out with revised turnout-boosting strategies before the next round of polling gets under way on April 26.