5th phase of Lok Sabha polling: J&K's Baramulla beats key urban centres

The Election Commission (EC) on Monday said nearly 58 per cent voter turnout (until 8.30 pm) was recorded on 49 seats that went to the polls in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha polls, with Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir headed for its best voter turnout at least since 1984.

With the conclusion of the fifth phase, voting has concluded on 428, or 79 per cent, of the seats, and 25 states and Union Territories, including Maharashtra, that had their final phase of polling on Monday. The big story of Monday’s polling was the relatively high turnout of 59 per cent in Baramulla, in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is the highest turnout in this constituency since 1984 when 61.1 per cent polling was registered, according to the EC’s website. However, the UT’s chief electoral officer, P K Pole, said the 2024 turnout on a violence-free polling day was the highest ever in this constituency, pipping 1984’s 58.90 per cent. In 2019, along with Anantnag and Srinagar, the Baramulla constituency registered the third-worst voter turnout across the country at 34.6 per cent. 

For Phase V, the EC had appealed to the “city dwellers” of Lucknow, Thane, and Mumbai, which have “in the past suffered from urban apathy in voting”, to “erase the stigma by turning out in higher numbers”. However, voter turnout remained tepid in these constituencies.  On Monday evening, the EC noted that constituencies in urban areas, “such as Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, and Lucknow continued the trend of urban apathy as noticed in the General Elections 2019” despite its efforts to rope in celebrities, who turned up to vote and urged electors to do so too.

At 42 per cent, Kalyan in Maharashtra registered the worst voter turnout among all 49 seats. In the elite Mumbai South constituency, where industrialists and actors queued up to vote, the turnout, updated until 8 pm, was a poor 44.63 per cent. It was 51.59 per cent in 2019.

However, in Amethi, where Union minister Smriti Irani faced the Congress’ K L Sharma, with Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra having stationed herself there, and in Rae Bareli, where former Congress president Rahul Gandhi is in the fray, the voter turnout was better than what was registered in 2019.

Highlighting better polling numbers in J&K, the EC noted that Srinagar, which had voted on May 13, had also registered its highest turnout since 1996, of 38.49 per cent. Srinagar had posted a turnout of 40.94 per cent in 1996.

A total of 22 candidates are in the fray in Baramulla, including National Conference’s Omar Abdullah, People’s Conference’s Sajjad Lone and Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) chairman Sheikh Abdul Rashid, alias Engineer Rashid, a two-term legislator who is lodged in Delhi's Tihar jail since he was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in a terror-funding case in 2019. In Sopore, which is in the Baramulla constituency, turnout was 44 per cent, up from 4 per cent in 2019. 

The EC officials said that by their enthusiastic participation, the people of J&K have given “a clear message” that they “are eager to exercise their franchise and have their stakes in the democratic system of governance”. The EC, in a statement, also noted that “this was the first general election in the Kashmir Valley after the abrogation of Article 370 and the enactment of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019”.

In the Mumbai South constituency, captains of industry voted, with some like Deepak Parekh, pointing at the long wait that people endured at polling booths. Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran was one of the first from India Inc leaders to exercise his franchise.

Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran after casting his vote in the Mumbai South constituency on Monday | Photo: KAMLESH PEDNEKAR

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das voted with family members at a school near his official residence in South Mumbai, while Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani, who resides a few blocks away, turned up at the same school later in the evening with his wife Nita and son Akash in tow. Industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla told reporters that his 19-year-old younger daughter Advaitesha also cast the vote for the first time, along with him and her elder sister Ananya.

 

Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das after casting his vote in the Mumbai South constituency on Monday | Photo: KAMLESH PEDNEKAR

Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra termed “governance and its outcomes” as the “primary issue” for which he voted. Parekh said the country needed stability and good leadership at the Centre “which we have been having for the last ten years. So, we hope that whichever party is elected, there is stability.” The veteran banker said there was a need to grow rapidly from now on, adding "India's growth needs to be at a pace which is twice that of the world”.

Shiv Sena (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray alleged that voting was delayed at several places in Mumbai and the poll body was doing this deliberately at the behest of the Narendra Modi government. In West Bengal, Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee’s youngest brother Swapan Banerjee, also known as 'Babun', on Monday could not cast his vote after his name was not found in the voters' list, an election official said. Babun, who is a voter of Howrah town, went to cast his vote at a polling booth when it was discovered that his name was not on the list.