The district witnessed an overall turnout of 50.61 per cent, a marginal rise from 49.2 per cent of Lok Sabha Polls, despite a high octane campaign season and money distribution on poll day. The turnout was higher in Rural areas.
"There was no excitement in people on polling day, as they have become disillusioned with all the political parties", observed Farooq Memon, editor of Bhiwandi Samachar. Breaking of decades old political alliances was also a major factor. "Political parties had to bring in weak candidates who lacked mass appeal at eleventh hour", said a businessman from Mumbra.
Candidates ran a very visible campaign. Everybody from Uddhav Thackrey and Raj Thackrey to Nitin Gadkari and Prithviraj Chouhan had addressed rallies in the district. But that proved insufficient in bringing voters to polling station.
Bhiwandi Rural, considered as Shiv Sena's bastion, saw the highest turnout of 66.24 per cent. Whereas industrial hub Ulhasnagar had the lowest turnout of 38.22 per cent. The fact that large labour population living there didn't have a day off was cited as possible reason for that.
Cities like Kalyan, Dombivli, Bhiwandi and Mira-Bhayander had around 44-45 percent turnout. Here most of the booths in posh areas wore a deserted look. In poorer parts supporters of candidates were seen distributing money in exchange of votes.
The four constituencies of Thane city namely Ovala-Majiwada, Kopri-Pachpakhdi, Thane and Mumbra-Kalwa registered 50.31, 53.1, 56.56 and 47.48 percentage of voting respectively. Residents reportedly preferred spending the holiday shopping with family instead of voting. In Mumbra-Kalwa region, voters' list required updating, as many of the residents had relocated to new addresses.
Airoli and Belapur constituencies in New Mumbai saw 51.47 and 49.61 per cent turnout respectively.
No comments:
Post a Comment