Polling booths to be set up in 150 Gurugram condos for assembly elections

By increasing the number of polling booths to more than 150, the administration aims to further improve voter participation in urban Gurugram

The Gurugram administration will set up polling booths in 150 condominiums for the upcoming assembly elections scheduled for October to boost voter turnout, people familiar with the matter said. The move comes after the success of the “vote from doorstep” initiative during the Lok Sabha elections in which the administration set up polling booths in community centres and clubs inside 52 residential and plotted colonies, including condominiums and high-rise buildings.

A woman shows her ink-stained finger after casting her vote in the Lok Sabha elections in a polling booth inside a condominium in Gurugram Sector 49 on May 25. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

Resident welfare associations (RWAs) with 800 voters or more have been invited to submit proposals to set up voting booths inside their residential societies.

“Our aim is the provide doorstep voting facility to maximise voter turnout. People still step out to vote when they know the facility is within their complex and it is safe. We saw the participation in the Lok Sabha elections and it yielded results,” said Gurugram deputy commissioner Nishant Yadav.

Yadav said that if there are fewer than 800 residents in one society/complex, they will club at least two to ensure they do not have to travel to another location. “If any society is close to a rural area and requires a pooling booth, we will set it up inside the complex rather than operating one in the village,” he said.

According to the administration, a key reason for setting up polling stations inside condos was that in the past few elections, the turnout of electors in Gurugram’s urban areas was significantly lower than HSVP sectors and rural areas.

The polling booths set up in condominiums and high rises in developing sectors along the Southern Peripheral Road (SPR) and the Dwarka Expressway witnessed a significantly higher turnout in the Lok Sabha elections compared to those set up in Sectors 1 to 57, provisional polling data shared by the district administration revealed.