Bihar polls: Voters shy away; Digha, Bankipur, Kumhrar witness lowest polling

Urban voters in constituencies falling under Patna district shied away from casting their votes.

Three constituencies, including Digha, Bankipur and Kumhrar, having the highest of number of electorate among nine assembly constituencies in Patna district, witnessed the lowest polling in the second phase of Bihar assembly elections held on Tuesday, while total polling in the district was 51.20 percent. The polling in the three constituencies was also lowest among the 188 seats that went for polls today.

An election official marks a voter’s finger with indelible ink during the second phase of Bihar Assembly election at Bankipur constituency in Patna. (Parwaz Khan / Hindustan Times)

In 2010 and 2015 assembly elections too these three constituencies had seen a low polling percentage.

This is true to the prophecy of poll pundits that the urban voters in constituencies falling under Patna district would shy away from casting their votes. Call it fear of Covid-19 or considering poll day as a holiday, many voters did not step out of their homes in urban areas, however, in rural Patna, this was not the case.

As per the figures provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI), the lowest voting of 34.50 percent in nine constituencies falling in Patna district was witnessed in Digha, followed by Bankipur (35.90 percent) and Kumhrar (36.40 percent). The highest polling of 61.80 percent among the 188 constituencies was recorded in Maner under Patna district.

Digha is the largest assembly constituency, electorate wise, among the 188 seats that went to polls on Tuesday.

There are a total of 2,85,50,285 electorate in Patna district comprising Bakhtiyarpur, Digha, Bankipur, Kumhrar, Patna Sahib, Fatuha, Danapur, Maner and Phulwari (SC) constituencies.

While there are a total of 1,50,330,34 male voters, the female electorate are 1,35,16,271 in the nine constituencies. Digha has the highest number of voters (4,60,165), followed by Kumhrar (4,27,078) and Bankipur (3,91,517). Bakhtiarpur constituency has the lowest number of voters (2,83,264).

Fearing low turnout of voters, this time the BJP candidates of Digha, Bankipur and Kumhrar had set up special cells to maintain direct contact with the voters. They had also set up call centres through which the voters were contacted to know whether they faced any problem in casting their votes. “Individual SMS and Uniform Resource Link (URL) were sent by the contestants to search the name of the electorate in the voters’ list,” said Ankit Raj, a call centre staff working with a BJP candidate.

“In this assembly election, it is a challenge to pull out the urban voters to the polling booths. People in urban areas are more conscience towards ways of preventing Covid-19 and so they are avoiding going to polling booths, however, in rural areas, this is not the case so the polling percentage is more,” said DM Diwakar, former director of AN Sinha Institute.

The Patna district administration had taken several measures to encourage voters to cast their votes on Tuesday, which included setting up 251 model polling booths, 13 eco-friendly stations, sanitisation of booths and adhering to social distancing norms for the prevention of Covid-19. It had also arranged 30 vehicles to ferry physically challenged and old aged voters.