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Lok Sabha elections 2019: Time to vote Pune... is now
At least 20.74 lakh voters in the city will deliver that answer, and its member of Parliament for the Lok Sabha for the next five years, today.
A strong anti-incumbency wave against the government of the day, coupled with an advertisement blitzkrieg by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), propelled voter turnout in Pune to 54 per cent; that was 2014.
2019, it’s the dominance of local issues with strong doses of nationalism. Will the voting percentage improve?
At least 20.74 lakh voters in the city will deliver that answer, and its member of Parliament for the Lok Sabha for the next five years, today.
In the third phase of elections, Pune votes today, Tuesday, April 23.
Watch | Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Big fights to watch out for in Phase 3 of voting
In the first decade of this century, city voter turnout hovered between 40.66 per cent (2009) and 43.57 per cent (2014), underlining a certain indifference exhibited by Puneites.
The involvement of social media in political campaigns has increased people’s engagement with a hope for a better voting percentage in 2019.
What worries is names missing from the electoral list, which even back in 2014, was a major issue. The administration, however, is confident that steps have been taken to ensure all names are on the electoral list.
“We have added at least 50,000 names to the voters’ list in Pune constituency. We have also been lenient in deletions, to ensure valid names are not removed from the list,” says Naval Kishore Ram, district collector, Pune.
Neighbouring Baramati will be among 14 constituencies of Maharashtra that also go to polls in third phase. In Baramati, NCP MP Supriya Sule is locked in a fight with BJP’s Kanchan Kul.
