LUCKNOW: With the 2022 state Assembly elections happening amid the third Covid wave, polling percentage will remain a big challenge.
However, if leading political parties and election commission officials are to be believed, the 18th legislative Assembly polls are likely to create a record in voter turnout.
According to data from the Election Commission of India (ECI), poll percentage in 2017 state Assembly polls saw a rise of 1.7% over that in 2012. However, it declined in 2019 Lok Sabha polls by 2%.
Last week, chief election commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra had stated that Uttar Pradesh has registered 15.02 crore voters including 52.8 lakh new ones expected to participate in the upcoming polls.
“UP is highly educated when it comes to elections. However, we would like to see more voters turning up at polling booths in the 2022 Vidhan Sabha polls. Polling percentage in 2019 parliamentary election was 59.2% as compared to 61% in 2017 assembly polls,” Chandra had stated after the three-day review meeting over election preparedness.
A senior IAS official said, “Poll percentage in Lok Sabha elections is often low as compared to Assembly polls. A large number of voters is more concerned with local issues and prefers to vote here rather than being involved in forming a government at the Centre.”
“Second, Omicron won’t stop people from voting. Panchayat polls turnout was around 75% when the second Covid wave was at its peak in April ,” said the officer.
A district election officer in west UP said, “UP’s voter is politically and socially mature. It is unlikely that electors will let go off their voting chance because of the pandemic. Our estimate is that there will be a rise of up to 5% in voter turnout. ECI has done immense work to clean the voter list—which means removing duplicate, ghost, deceased and relocated voters.”
UP BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said, “Considering the panchayat elections, we believe that voting percentage will see a surge. Plus, ECI has extensively cleaned the voter list, which will leave an impact on polling figures.”
Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson Vaibhav Maheshwari said, “There is no doubt that voter turnout will be maximum in the upcoming state elections. A large number of electors have a realization of their duties and want to bring change,”
