With the Election Commission’s efforts to maximize voting and the BJP projecting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate, this western state witnessed its second highest-ever polling with average turnout being put at 63.33 per cent for election to 26 Lok Sabha seats held on Wednesday, according to the revised final figures released on Thursday.
Earlier, Gujarat, which came into being on May 1, 1960, had registered the highest voting, 63.77 per cent, in 1967. As per the final polling figures provided by the Election Commission, about 2.57 crore voters, including 1.15 crore women, exercised their franchise for the 16th Lok Sabha poll.
The constituency-wise figures indicate that polling at some of the constituencies in the Central and Southern Gujarat regions was over 70 per cent. Bardoli (ST), Bharuch and Valsad (ST) registered over 74 per cent voting.
Vadodara, from were the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)’s prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is running, registered 70.57 per cent polling, the same was 49 per cent in 2009. The state’s average polling for the 2009 General Elections was 47.92 per cent.
Gandhinagar too witnessed heavy voter turnout at 65.10 per cent as against 50.82 per cent registered in 2009. BJP leader L K Advani is the sitting MP from Gandhinagar since 1999.
The voter turnout was lower than average on Ahmedabad (East) seat (61.26 per cent), where BJP has fielded actor Paresh Rawal replacing its sitting MP and popular BJP leader Harin Pathak.
Key seats like Sabarkantha (67.30), Anand (64.63) and Kheda (59.50) from where Congress leaders Shankarsinh Vaghela, Bharat Solanki and Dinsha Patel are contesting respectively.
Porbandar constituency in the Saurashtra region registered lowest voting at 52.31 per cent however this was higher than 47.71 per cent witnessed in 2009.
Overall, in Saurashtra region, voting remained lower than the state average. Bhavnagar registered 57.27 per cent. Voting on Amreli, Jamnagar and Surendranagar constituencies was 54.21 per cent, 57.80 per cent and 56.70 per cent respectively.
Although the voting was brisk in the early ours of the day, it was slow in the afternoon due to heat. Yet, it picked up in the evening during the last two hours contributing almost 30 per cent to the total voting.