Bangalore: With the recent Karnataka exit polls having ended, the counting has begun where Bengalaru has been shown to be as having the least turn out indicating an unchanged trend which it has seen in the previous years as well. This year the city saw a turnout of 54.29%, which has been determined to be about even 4% reduction in voting compared to the election held in 2013.
Previously the voting results turned out to be quite similar with 54% voting in the Lok Sabha elections while five years before that it stood at 58.81%. However, active citizen groups disagree with the statistics saying that it does not reflect the real sentiments of the population where many eligible voters are rejected on preposterous reasons without any clarification which has been happening years on end as against the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
A majority of the constituencies have seen a marginal decline in active voting with at least eight of them having seen a noticeable fall in the electoral vote. While in some areas of the city such as Hebbal and C.V. Raman Nagar recorded pathetic turnouts to as low as 7% of voters. With this comes the question where people who come up with numerous complaints about the administration as well other civic issues, do they really deserve to vent?
According to a survey by Centre for Media Studies this year’s poll has been understood to be the most costly in aspect of spending by parties and candidates. The survey has stated that the expenditure is very high more than twice of the previous Assembly polls held in 2013 calculated to be as high as Rs. 9,500-10,500 crores. Some electoral analysts are of the opinion that this is part of the agenda belonging to the Karnataka, Election Commission, where the campaign is illusory and only advisory in nature where political parties are also accountable for the same.
Recent data show that there is not a huge difference in the number of new applications across the city. Further the existence of 8,000 booth level officers for the numerous booths does not exist in reality which is bogus information as per the Karnataka Election Commission Website. While the information suggests that 28.18% of online application with 8.55% being have been rejected in the city neither the legal channel is being followed in such rejections where voters are informed of it through Form 12 where such voters get a chance to appeal.
In some areas of the city such as Mahadevapura and K.R. Puram the turnout had been much better determined to be at 30% as per ECI figures, where residents of Whitefield had initiated a campaign to encourage voters better known as the ‘million voter’ campaign. It has been also reported as per an election analyst that the disease of fake voters still prevails where during the period of January, 2017 to October, 2017 around more than 2000 false voters had made entries.