EC Meeting underway with municipal commissioners & selected district election officers from 11 states

The Election Commission’s meeting is underway with Municipal Commissioners and selected District Election Officers from 11 states which had the lowest voter turnout in the last General Elections.

The meeting chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar along with Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu is being held in New Delhi.

The meeting will discuss ways to step up voter turnout in the ensuing Lok Sabha Elections. 

It will prepare targeted and specific action plans to address the issue of low voter turnout in certain urban and rural areas. 

Municipal Commissioners of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Thane, Nagpur, Patna Sahib, Lucknow and Kanpur and select District Election Officers of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are attending the meeting.

The Chief Election Commissioner has on many occasions highlighted the challenge of urban apathy and migration from rural areas as reasons for low participation.

During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 11 States and UTs namely Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand had the lower voter turnout than the national average of 67.40 per cent.

In urban areas, of the 50 Parliamentary Constituencies with the lowest voter turnout, 17 were found to be in Metropolitan areas or major cities reflecting an unfortunate trend of urban apathy.

Besides, over 50 rural Parliamentary Constituencies across nine states with the lowest turnout have also been identified for deliberation on specific issues and developing strategies to enhance poll percentage.