A low voter turnout label bogs down the capital city

Bengaluru: The Election Commission is worried about the declining percentage of voting in the assembly elections in Bangalore city every election year. A comparison of the 2013 and 2018 Legislative Assembly election voting figures shows a year-on-year percentage decline.

Especially, 14 constituencies including Dasarahalli Constituency and CV Raman Nagar Constituency had low voter turnout in the city and have been infamous as the lowest voter turnout constituencies in the state. The authorities are aware to remove this tag. In 2013, the voter turnout in Dasarahalli constituency was 55.04 per cent.

However, in 2018, the voter turnout dropped to 48.03 per cent and decreased to minus 7.37 per cent. Besides, in CV Raman Nagar constituency in 2013, the voter turnout was 54.10 per cent. However, last time it had decreased to 48.98 percent. Thereby the vote percentage rate decreased to 5.12 per cent.

Similarly, in the BTM Assembly Constituency, which is located in the IT-BT hub constituency, the voter turnout was 53.30 percent in the 2013 elections. However, in the 2018 election, it was reduced to 50.09 percent. In this backdrop, the corporation officers and Bangalore City GP staff who have woken up have planned to increase the percentage of voting.

Voter awareness in colleges

The BBMP officials who have already spread message of awareness about voting in IT-BT, industrial area, garment factories are now focusing on colleges. Some graduate colleges have 200 to 300 youth voters. If they arrive at the polling station, the number of voters will further double. In this context, the local election officials said that they will go to the college students and request them to vote.

Youth should come and vote in large numbers. There are around 500 young voters in Vijaya College under Bangalore South Zone. Corporation officials said that they will go to many educational institutions including such colleges and personally appeal to the students to do it on the polling day without fail. He also said that until May 10, he will visit all the colleges and important places to create voting awareness.

District Election Officer and BBMP Chief Commissioner, Tushar Girinath said, In Bengaluru, the percentage of voting is decreasing, and on this backdrop, meetings have already been held with IT-BT and garment owners. It has been requested to give leave to the employees on that day. In addition, voting awareness is created in colleges.