EC releases voter turnout data for Phase 6 within 3 days of polling

The Phase 6 of the ongoing general elections, in which 58 Lok Sabha constituencies, including the seven seats of Delhi, went to polls on May 25, saw a voter turnout of 63.37%, the Election Commission of India said on Tuesday.

The poll body also released details of the absolute number of votes cast within three days of polling- the shortest gap between the polling day and release of such data this election season.

It also gave gender-wise breakup of voter turnout for each constituency (in percentage). The EC also gave details of the absolute number of electors in the 57 constituencies that will vote in the seventh and final phase on June 1.

For phases 1 to 5, data about the absolute number of votes cast was released on May 25.

In its press release, the EC noted that this turnout does not include postal ballots, and that actual data of Form 17C, which is shared with the agents of the candidates on the day of polling, will prevail.

“Final turnout will only be available post-counting with counting of postal ballots and its addition to total vote count. Postal Ballots include Postal Ballots given to service voters, absentee voters (85+, PwD, Essential Services etc.) and Voters on Election Duty. Daily account of such Postal ballots received, as per Statutory provisions, are given to all candidates,” the EC said.

In Phase 6, West Bengal’s Bishnupur saw the highest voter turnout at 85.91% while Uttar Pradesh’s Phulpur had the lowest turnout at 48.91%. In Bishnupur, 1,507,040 voters of the 1,754,268 electors cast their vote while in Phulpur, 1,010,909 voters of the 2,067,043 electors voted.

Urban apathy continued to prevail as only 58.59% voters voted. The highest turnout was in North-East Delhi, where Congress’s Kanhaiya Kumar took on BJP’s incumbent member of Parliament (MP) Manoj Tiwari, at 62.89% while the lowest was in New Delhi at 55.43%, where the contest is between BJP’s Bansuri Swaraj and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s Somnath Bharti. Gurgaon and Faridabad (both in Haryana) fared marginally better with turnouts of 62.03% and 60.52%, respectively.