A multi-corner fight, purification of voter rolls and anti-incumbency factors are being cited as major reasons.
The polling percentage for the 10 civic corporations and 11 Zilla parishads in Maharashtra which were held on Tuesday crashed past records with an average rise of five per cent across the state despite large scale complaints of voter names missing from the rolls.
Multi-corner fight, massive purification of voter rolls and anti-incumbency factors are being cited as major reasons for the rise in the vote percentage in Maharashtra.
The results will be declared on 23 February. It would not only decide the fate of the Fadnavis government which is hanging in balance due to consistent threats by Shiv Sena about ending the alliance in the state, but would also show the real strength of all political parties when the next Assembly polls are just two and half years away.
The average turnout in 10 big cities of Maharashtra remained around 56%, as per the tentative figures of the poll watchdog. This is much below than the turnouts witnessed in the three phases of UP Assembly polls and other recently held Assembly polls.
Mumbai, where the turnout had never touched 50% since 1992 and was a dismal 44.75% five years back, crossed 55%, which is a whopping 10% rise, says the tentative figures provided by the state election commission. Final figures are expected on Wednesday. BJP and Sena, who fought solo this time, are eyeing India's richest civic body ruled by the duo together for two decades.
A decent 8 per cent rise was seen in the voting percentage of the second high profile Thane municipal corporation currently ruled by Sena. Ulhasnagar, Pune, Solapur, Pimri Chinchwad and Nashik also witnessed an average 4-5% increase.
However, the corporations ruled by the BJP like Nagpur, Amravati and Akola have more or less the same polling percentage which has excited the BJP leaders. They hope to win 6/10 corporations.
The 11 Zilla Parishads which went to polls on Tuesday also experienced good voter turnout of an average 70%, showing increased enthusiasm among voters in the state this time.
Multi-corner fight in most places, as the old time friends BJP and Sena and Congress and NCP decided to contest solo, has also helped raise the percentage, say observers. “With the aim to maximize their benefit, all parties have mobilised their vote banks to polling booth,” say analysts.
The election commission in a massive exercise of purification has deleted over 21 lakh voters across Maharashtra from the voter rolls owing to death, transfer and duplication of names. While deletion led to chaos in several areas with complaints of names missing or shifted to unrelated wards, the move has reportedly resulted in raising the poll percentage to some extent.
Most of the missing voters' cases were reported in civic corporations which have larger population such as Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Amravati.
State election commission officials blame it on the Election Commission of India. The EC officials however downplayed the issue. They claimed most cases were of “changed wards” and if some names were missing it was because voters shifted to other places.
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