Dissecting poll percentage dip in charged Lok Sabha elections
Image credit X @dreamgirlhema
Voters’ apathy surfaces in Lok Sabha elections
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, April 30: The Lok Sabha elections are now two-phase old. There is a dip in the polling percentage in the two phases, in the range of four to six percentages.
Fate of the yesteryear’s heartthrob and film star Hema Malini is also now locked in the ballot box. She defied the informal rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to bag the Lok Sabha nomination at an age of 75 years. In 2019, the BJP was keen to retire politicians after they turned 75 years old.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi threw a safety net to incumbent MPs by adopting them as members of his family. So, several of the late 70s candidates are sweating out in the poll fray for the sole basis of being members of the ‘Modi ka Pariwar’.
But the people in the Mathura Lok Sabha constituency have indicated that they are no more enthused with occasional dance show of Hema Malini. The Mathura Lok Sabha constituency recorded the lowest voting percentage in Uttar Pradesh at 49.29 per cent.
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In the Begusarai Lok Sabha seat, the BJP nominee and Union Minister Giriraj Singh is inviting yawns to his patented ‘Pakistan waalon’ dialogues. Singh sought to raise the electioneering temperature by stating that he was not seeking votes from those who support Pakistan.
Singh is facing declining return on assets (Pakistan-baiting). Modi is going hammer and tongue against the Congress by innovating poll planks. The magic of mangalsutra is also not pulling crowds to the polling booth.
“We were not able to take out at least five per cent of our voters to the polling booths,” said a functionary of the BJP in the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat. In 2019, this seat among several others had given victories to the BJP with margins measured in miles.
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“We faced strong resentment against the candidates in both the Jammu and the Udhampur Lok Sabha seats. Both the candidates (Jugal Kishore Sharma and Union Minister Jeetendra Singh) forgot their constituencies for five years as they took comforts in Modi magic,” said a senior BJP functionary.
The people apparently are not highly enthused by the pack of tired and fatigued leaders who are still in the reckoning for having been adopted by Modi as his family members.
Polling for the first two phases were held on Friday. This stoked some to speculate that the Muslims may give priority to their rituals to voting. Data is yet to come to show any light on such arguments.
Yet, the Muslims are not vocal. Muslims appear to make subtle changes in their stances, at least in Uttar Pradesh. They don’t want to be seen vocal while preferring to shun the tag of tactical voters.
“In the first two phases of the polling, no instructions were shared with the Muslim community. They were told to vote for whichever candidate they support. This is unlike the past when the Muslims spent energy to find out candidates who were in positions to defeat their BJP rivals,” said a senior political observer, who has covered elections for over 30 years.
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