Gujarat registered a voter turnout of 64.33% for the recently-concluded elections, a drop of over 4% compared with the turnout registered in the last Assembly polls in 2017.
The polls were held in two phases with 89 seats voting on December 1, while the second phase of polling was held on December 5 in 92 Assembly segments.
According to the latest data shared by the Election Commission of India on Tuesday, voter turnout for the first phase of elections held on December 1 for 89 seats was 63.31%, and it was 65.30% for the second phase of polling held on December 5 for 93 seats.
The average turnout for all the 182 seats spread across 33 districts was 64.33%, which is lower by 4.08% compared with the 2017 Assembly polls when Gujarat had registered 68.41% voting.
Nearly 3.16 crore voters out of a total of 4.91 crore registered eligible voters exercised their franchise on December 1 and 5, according to data from the ECI. They included included 1.69 crore males (66.74%), 1.46 crore females (61.75%), and 445 voters from the ‘third gender’ category.
Saurashtra’s Botad district with two Assembly seats registered the lowest voter turnout of 57.59%, whereas tribal-dominated Narmada district in south Gujarat topped with 78.42 %.
Some of the districts which registered a low turnout are Amreli (57.60%), Ahmedabad (59.05%), Porbandar (59.50%), Junagadh (59.54%), and Kutch (59.85%). All these districts are in the Saurashtra and Kutch region, which voted in the first phase.
Districts where voters came out in higher numbers were Tapi (77.04%), Banaskantha (72.49%), Sabarkantha (71.43%), Navsari (71.06%) and Morbi (69.95%), according to the ECI’s data.
A total of 1,621 candidates were in the fray for elections to 182 seats in Gujarat, where the BJP is seeking a seventh straight term while the Congress is the main opposition party. New entrant Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is trying to make a debut in the State in a bid to challenge the BJP’s supremacy.
The results will be declared on December 8.
