New Delhi: West Delhi parliamentary constituency on Sunday, saw a considerable decline in voter turnout for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections compared to the last parliamentary polls. Only 60.64 percent of registered voters showed up to cast their votes, showing a nearly 6 percent fall compared to 66.03 percent votes cast in 2014.
Speaking to the Millennium Post, Presiding Officers at several booths in areas like Khyala, Vikaspuri, and Tilak Nagar pointed out that voters took their time reaching polling booths given that it was a Sunday.
A Presiding Officer in Khyala said, "It has been slow in the early hours. But the pace has picked up since 11 am. Some booths in the area are already touching 40 percent votes polled," he said.
With an undisturbed voting process, Janakpuri recorded the highest voter turnout in the constituency at 65.03 percent votes polled behind Madipur (63.74 percent) and Uttam Nagar (62.54 percent). However, areas like Hari Nagar and Vikaspuri saw the least voter turnout at 55.61 percent and 55.41 percent respectively. Matiala, the constituency where both BJP's Parvesh Verma and AAP's Balbir Singh Jakhar voted, saw the third-least trunout at 59.85 percent. Congress' Mahabal Mishra cast his vote in Dwarka, where 60.32 percent votes were polled.
Moreover, speculations about the effects of "Modi wave" wearing off in West Delhi, if not the entire Capital seem to be apparent at this point, given a basic analysis of voter turnout in the last two Lok Sabha polls.
In 2009, when Mishra won the seat against BJP's Jagdish Mukhi by a margin of more than 1 lakh votes, total votes polled amounted to just 52 percent of registered voters.
After five more years of UPA-II, when Narendra Modi became the face of BJP and the saffron party rode the "Modi wave" in 2014, the voter turnout spiked by almost 14 percent in the constituency. This showed the effects of the so-called wave across the country. And riding on it, Verma, a fresh face from BJP defeated then-incumbent Mishra by a margin of more than 4 lakh votes. Hence, this year's turnout clearly points towards the Modi wave waning off, at least in West Delhi. Mishra is facing Verma again this year, and AAP's fresh face Jakhar has thrown his hat in the ring. The Lok Sabha election results are set to be announced on May 23.