Vote percentage drops 5%, missing names, pro-incumbency to blame

NEW DELHI: Delhi on Sunday witnessed a sharp drop of 5 per cent vote than the 2014 Lok Sabha poll. In 2014, the total voter turnout was nearly 65 per cent which became 60 per cent in 2019.

Sources in political parties listed issues like heat, smearing campaigns, voter list deletion, non-alliance and pro-incumbency for this turnout. While BJP sources focused on the pro-incumbency factor the AAP observed that voter list deletion played the major role.

Meanwhile, the common people took a dig into the smearing campaign and non-alliance. "The AAP and Congress alliance were much needed in Delhi. It did not happen and there is no point to cast vote as BJP will anyway. I also did not like the kind of blame game all the political parties did. The politicians in Delhi have stoop down so low that I lost my faith from the electoral scene," said Rishav Mehta who was supposed to vote from the New Delhi constituency but did not.

The ruling Aam Aadmi Party has been alleging that lakhs of names of voters have been deleted, even as poll body rejected its allegations.

Taking to Twitter, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said, "Voters unable to find their votes at polling booths. It is true that on large scale votes have been deleted. All these are resident of Jai Vihar-I, Najafgarh."

He asked what the ECI had to say about this and sought to know who was responsible for the voters' constitutional right to be taken away like this.

"Vote deleted this time. All are regularly voting in the past." Delhi Home Minister Satyendra Jain tweeted with images of voter identity cards of people whose names were not in the list. Over 1.43 crore people in Delhi are eligible to vote in this election which will decide the fate of 164 candidates, of which 18 are women. There are 43 independent candidates. While 2,54,723 voters are in the age group of 18 and 19, there are 40,532 electorates with a disability who would be provided pick up and drop facility.

Delhiites on Sunday voted to decide the fate of at least 164 candidates, who are fighting for the seven Lok Sabha seats in the capital. In 2014, the BJP won all the seven seats and is looking to repeat the feat.

The three main parties –BJP, Congress and AAP –have fielded their state party chiefs from a single constituency. BJP's Manoj Tiwari, DPCC chief Sheila Dikshit and AAP's Delhi chief Dilip Pandey are all locking horns in north-east Delhi constituency that is reeling under the key issues of bad roads, overflowing drains and garbage disposal.