Election Commission of India has doubled up its voter participation interventions to overcome the small drop in turnout in the first two phases of Lok Sabha polls. The turnout so far has been 66.14% in phase 1 and 66.71% in phase 2, which seen against electoral participation history in India is among the best but somewhat lags the high benchmarks of 2019. The turnout of voters continues to remain at the centre of ECI’s election management efforts.
ECI remains committed to take up all interventions possible to boost voter turnout in next 5 phases. Commission led by CEC Shri Rajiv Kumar, EC Shri Gyanesh Kumar and EC Shri Sukhbir Singh Sandhu is leading a set of additional initiatives for this purpose with Chief Electoral Officers and senior officers at Nirvachan Sadan.
A remarkable feature of the SVEEP campaigns personally led by CEC Shri Rajiv Kumar has been the pro-bono collaborations by major departments, corporates, celebrities, and organisations. The Commission during the last one year has energetically run its flagship programme Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) pushing hard all three parts of it: information, motivation, and facilitation, more so in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections. States and districts have taken up a range of local specific interventions to boost citizen participation under Turn Out Implementation (TIP) plan targeting low turnout constituencies. Some of the mass campaigns that resonated in recent weeks across the country are at Annexure A.
Commission is disappointed with the turnout level in some metropolitan cities in phase 2 polls, a pointer to the rigid levels of apathy in India’s high-tech city. Cities in NCR have fared no better. ECI last month assembled many metro Commissioners in Delhi to work out a strategy to fight urban apathy. An exclusive action plan has been taken up. The Commission hopes that urban centres going to polls in next phases turn the tide. Commission will constantly follow up with concerned city administrations.
Following the dip in turnout in phase 1, Commission had directed state CEOs of Maharashtra, Bihar, UP and Rajasthan and Karnataka to come up with additional set of plans to enhance voter turnout. The Commission also held one to one interaction with DEOs of low turnout districts (based on 2019 figures) in phases 3 and 4 to identify ways for enhancing turnout.
ECI already held meeting with top IMD experts, health and disaster management agencies to consider the impact of heatwave on the election process, especially voters’ turnout during phase 3. As per the empirical evidence provided by IMD, there is no major concern with regard to heat wave for phase 3 of the General Elections scheduled on May, 7, 2024. The weather forecast situation is predicted to be normal in the 11 States/UTs going for polls in Phase 3.
