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Gujarat Elections: Headlines, December 3, 2022

Saturday, Dec 3, 2022: ECI: Urban Apathy to Voting Persists

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar

Narendrabhai Modi has been holding major roadshows in a number of cities in Gujarat during these elections. On 1st December, he held a marathon road show of about 54 Km and of 4 hours in Ahmedabad. He is 72 years old but he did not show signs of tiredness even at the end of the long roadshow.

He followed it up with a roadshow of about 10 Km on 2nd December 2022 in the remaining constituencies of Ahmedabad

Narendrabhai Modi in a Roadshow at Ahmedabad

Earlier in the evening of Sunday, 27th November 2022, he had gone through a 27 Km long roadshow from Surat airport to Varaccha, the city’s hub for diamond cutting and polishing. Thousands of people gather on both sides of the road during these roadshows and it helps energize the party workers for working at every booth to bring voters for voting.

Though Modi is by far the most popular leader in Gujarat and though every one agrees that he has changed the face of Gujarat, the Congress has strong roots in the co-operative movement and it is not likely to be pushed to 3rd place by AAP, even though Kejriwalji has invested a great deal of money and energy into the campaign.

 URBAN APATHY TO VOTING: Election Commission of India said that in cities, voting %age is much lower than that in cities. This trend has been observed all over the country and the data from the 1st phase of voting confirms that the same is true in Gujarat Elections 2022.  As a graphic example, voting in the rural constituency of Dediapada in Narmada district was 82.7%, whereas in the urban constituency of Gandhi dham in Kuchh district was 47.8% only.

Not a single urban constituency recorded voting of more than 65% while 26 rural constituencies crossed this level during the election of December 1 in Gujarat.

Rajiv Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner, appealed to the voters in Gujarat to come out for voting in larger numbers during the second phase of the polls scheduled on 5 December.

The ECI pointed out that there was a noticeable gap in voting turnout between rural and urban constituencies. It was as wide as 34.85%.

The ECI, in an attempt to mitigate this challenge of urban apathy, has directed all Chief Electoral Officers to identify the reasons for low voter turnout. CEC has further urged all polling stations to carry out targeted awareness interventions to amplify voting percentage.

The high-voltage campaigning for the second and final phase of the Gujarat Assembly elections ended at 5 pm on Saturday. The main contenders in the elections are the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, and Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

93 constituencies will go to polls on Monday, 5th December 2022, spread across 14 districts of north and central Gujarat including Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Gandhinagar.

The first phase, for which voting had taken place on 1st December 2022, covered 89 seats in 19 districts. The counting of votes will take place on December 8.

                —  By Sachin Ashal

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