The city has witnessed remarkably low voter turnout on the day of the polling for the elections to the State Legislative Assembly on November 30.
The polling percentage labouriously crawled to 40.88% in Hyderabad district as updated on the Election Commission’s app when checked at 8 p.m. This is way worse than the 50.31% recorded during the previous Assembly elections in 2018.
It was only a trickle of voters at a large number of polling stations across the 15 constituencies, with very few exceptions.
The PollQRoute app, which was designed to draw voters to the polling stations, by updating the status of queues and waiting time, was redundant as there were hardly any queues at the booths.
The turnout was especially poor in the city south of Musi river, with Yakutpura recording the lowest percentage in the whole State at 27.87%.
Secunderabad Cantonment recorded the highest voter turnout in the city at 47.14%, followed by Khairatabad at 45.5%.
Amberpet recorded 40.69%, Bahadurpura - 39.11%, Chandrayangutta - 39%, Charminar - 41.45%, Goshamahal - 54.93%, Jubilee Hills - 44.2%, Karwan - 40.49%, Khairatabad - 45.5%, Malakpet - 36.9%, Musheerabad - 40.24%, Nampally - 32.4%, Sanathnagar - 45.1%, and Secunderabad - 45.01%.
The apathy of the urban voter reflected even in the urban constituencies of the Ranga Reddy district, which are part of the GHMC. LB Nagar recorded the lowest at 43.59%, while Rajendranagar recorded 44.3%, and Serilingampally - 48.6%.
While the district electoral officials failed despite the best of their efforts to bring the urban voters to the polling stations, they succeeded in holding the elections incident-free, compared to the previous elections. Barring a few, there were hardly any complaints about names missing from electoral rolls or any other glitches.
“Booth level officers marked a few voters on the absentee list when they found the doors locked. The voters were not allowed to exercise their franchise even when they arrived with EPIC and voter slips,” shared Syed Bilal, an Independent candidate who contested from Malakpet constituency.
Several voters were confused with a delay of 10 to 20 seconds after the vote was cast, for the EVM to record it and confirm through a beep.
A few voters complained about the facilities at the polling stations.
“Polling booth entrance was very narrow. Steps to the booth were narrow, with two steep ramps on either side. Even people in their middle age found it difficult to climb the steps,” shared P. V. Chowdary, a voter from Sripuram Colony. While wheel chairs were brought upon request for the senior citizens who are unable to walk, not many were aware of the facility.
