BENGALURU: In a city with about one crore registered voters, almost half of them did not exercise their franchise in the polling held during the second phase of the Lok Sabha election on Friday. Bengaluru has a population of a little over 1.4 crore.
As per the available figures, voting was 0.8 per cent less in Bengalru for the Lok Sabha election this year compared to 2019. While the state recorded 69.32 per cent voting at 10 pm on Friday, it was just a little above 50 per cent in the three Lok Sabha seats in the city and 67.29 per cent in Bangalore Rural.
Bangalore North Lok Sabha constituency registered the highest polling in the city at 54.42 per cent while Bangalore Central recorded 52.81 per cent and Bangalore South 53.15 per cent. In the 2019 general election, Bangalore North recorded 54.76 per cent voting while Bangalore Central recorded 54.32 per cent and Bangalore South 52.07 per cent.
The poor voting percentage comes despite the State Election Commission taking up various activities to increase voter awareness, and officials in different districts shutting down holiday destinations to dissuade voters from going out on holiday for the weekend. How the voting in Bengaluru will impact the outcome of the election will be known on June 4 when the counting of votes is taken up.
Meanwhile, all the electronic voting machines (EVMs) of the respective constituencies in Bengaluru were shifted to strongrooms after the voting process. The EVMs were shifted to 10 strongrooms including St Joseph’s Indian High School and Mount Carmel College under tight security. Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Saidulu Adavath also visited St Joseph’s College and oversaw the arrangements.
Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner K A Dayananda said the strongrooms were sealed in the presence of election officials and candidates. There will be three layers of security with the CRPF forming the first layer, the KSRP the second and the civil police forming the third layer.
“The CCTV cameras will be switched on for 24/7 till the strongrooms are opened on the day of counting of votes and will be constantly monitored and any candidate can ask to check the monitors at any time. There will be a minimum of 100 security personnel at every stage and this arrangement will continue till June 4. Barring a couple of instances where there were hiccups, the election process went off smoothly” he said.