Final numbers in, Delhi recorded lower turnout than 2015 Assembly polls

On a day when a controversy erupted over a delay in releasing the final voter turnout figure 24 hours after voting ended for Delhi’s Assembly elections, the chief

On a day when a controversy erupted over a delay in releasing the final voter turnout figure 24 hours after voting ended for Delhi’s Assembly elections, the chief electoral officer (CEO) on Saturday evening announced that 62.59% of the Capitals electors had voted.

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Terming the turnout as “satisfactory”, CEO Ranbir Singh, at a press conference, said it was around five percentage points lower than the 2015 Assembly elections which saw 67.12% voting. However, the turnout was two percentage points higher than that of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, which was 60.56.

Of the 14.7 million voters who were eligible to cast their vote, 9,254,843 people cast their vote. Of this, male voters comprised 5,075,662 (62.62%) while women voters were 4,178,841 (62.55%). Of the total 869 third gender electors, only 340 came out to cast their vote.

He started the press conference by clarifying that there was “no unusual delay” in announcing the turnout.

“Usually the final turnout figure comes by afternoon. In this case, since polling went on till late evening hours on Saturday, the process of taking the electronic voting machines (EVMs) to the strong rooms and sealing of the rooms was on till early hours on Sunday. Scrutiny of data from all the 13,751 polling stations was done till Sunday afternoon and we came out with the final result by evening,” said Singh.

It is important that the data that is computed and released is accurate, he added.

Earlier in the day, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal questioned the delay in the announcement of the final turnout figures.

CEO Singh said the highest turnout was recorded from Ballimaran at 71.6%, while the lowest was reported from Delhi Cantonment at 45.4%. The Okhla assembly constituency, which houses Shaheen Bagh where anti-citizenship amendment act (CAA) protest is on, recorded a turnout of 58.84%. In 2015, it had recorded 60.73% turnout.

Unlike the 2015 polls where the highest turnout was recorded from Gokalpur assembly segment in northeast Delhi at 73.46%, Ballimaran in the Walled City garnered the highest votes this time.

There was a big difference in the turnout figures announced on Sunday and the count provided by the election commission throught its Voter Turnout app on Saturday evening. For example, Ballimaran on Saturday evening had recorded 49.39% turnout, the second lowest after Delhi Cantonment. In 2015 assembly polls, the assembly segment had recorded 67.84% turnout.

Till Saturday midnight, Seelampur assembly segment in northeast Delhi showed the highest turnout at 71.04%, which however slipped to being the second highest at 71.2% in the final turnout data. The constituency was among the five major Muslim-dominated seats in northeast Delhi that recorded the highest turnouts in 2015 polls.

Delhi Cantonment had polled the lowest votes at 58.49% in 2015 polls as well. All assembly constituencies except Delhi Cantonment had polled above 60% votes in 2015 assembly elections.

While the overall turnout fell from the 2015 assembly polls, the New Delhi assembly represented by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal showed a sharp fall of 11.85 percentage points on Sunday as against 64% in 2015.

However, even as voters had complained of long queues and delay in polling at some of the 11 assembly constituencies that used QR code-enabled voter slips for the first time, Singh denied it.

Senior deputy election commissioner Sandeep Saxena from the Election Commission of India (ECI) said, “There was only one assembly constituency --- Bijwasan –where there was a brief delay because of the mobile phone being used by the poll officers to scan the slips suffered a malfunction. However, voting picked up soon after.”