The first phase of polling for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union Territories witnessed an encouraging turnout of 63.5%, while remaining largely smooth and peaceful even in vulnerable areas like the Naxal-hit Bastar region and West Bengal that witnessed violence in the run-up. Incidents of violence were reported in Manipur which still managed to log a turnout of 70.8%.
The overall turnout for these seats in 2019 was 66%, barring delimited seats in Assam and Outer Manipur, a few assembly segments of which went to the polls in the first phase this time.
Defying summer heat almost all over the country and rain in J&K’s Udhampur, people came out in large numbers despite talk of a low-key campaign.
“Election Commission has worked extremely hard over the past couple of years to make a smooth and peaceful Lok Sabha election a reality. The first phase turnout is very encouraging and should enthuse voters to come out in even higher numbers in the remaining phases,” a senior EC functionary said.
West Bengal, which has a history of poll violence and clashes between rival party workers, saw peaceful polling barring stray altercations in Cooch Behar. EC said none of these incidents had any effect on polling, as evident from the 79.4% turnout recorded across the three parliamentary constituencies of Alipurduars, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri.
Tripura too saw incident-free polling with the turnout touching 81.5% and Sikkim logged 80%, while other states where turnouts soared beyond 70% included Manipur, Puducherry (78.3%), Meghalaya (74.5%) and Assam (73.4%). Udhampur saw polling of 67.9% despite rain and terror threats.
In Bastar constituency of Chhattisgarh, voters defied threats from Left-wing extremists to clock a 67% turnout. Manipur, where ethnic violence has been a major law and order concern since mid-2023, saw by-and-large peaceful polling and an overall turnout of 69.2%. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which have traditionally been low-to-moderate turnout states, maintained the trend with 60.3% and 48.9% voting respectively. Rajasthan too had lower turnout than the national average at 57.3%, as did Maharashtra at 61.2%, Nagaland (56.9%) and Mizoram (56.6%).
