SHILLONG: In an irony of sorts, Mawlai, the biggest constituency in Meghalaya, had the lowest voter turnout in the Lok Sabha polls held on Thursday.
Mawlai constituency with the highest number of voters (44,252) witnessed 59.32 per cent turnout.
However, there is a 6.31 per cent increase in voting percentage in the constituency from the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Urban apathy once again proved to be a major challenge for the Election Commission in the Lok Sabha polls for Shillong and Tura seats.
A breakup of the urban constituencies of Shillong and Tura town shows that the average voter turnout was little over 60 per cent.
In Pynthorumkhrah constituency, the turnout was 64.57 per cent showing a decrease of 2.60 per cent since the turnout in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls was 67.18 per cent.
East Shillong constituency witnessed 62.54 per cent turnout, a decline of 0.42 per cent from the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when turnout was 62.96 per cent.
The turnout in North Shillong was 60.07 per cent while in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, it was 61.87 per cent and there is 1.80 per cent decrease.
The West Shillong constituency’s turnout was 65.03 per cent as against 68.87 per cent in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the constituency saw a decline of 3.84 percent in voter turnout.
In the South Shillong constituency, the turnout was 63.91 per cent while the turnout in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls stood at 65.86 per cent showing a decline of 1.95 per cent.
Nongthymmai exception
Nongthymmai constituency was an exception with 63.27 per cent turnout compared to 60.14 per cent in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The percentage of increase was 3.13.
In North Tura, the turnout in this year’s poll was 72.65 per cent and in 2014, it was 73.11 per cent. The urban constituency too saw a decline of 0.46 percent.
The South Tura constituency saw 71.97 per cent turnout and in the last polls, the turnout was 71.81 per cent.
However, Chief Electoral Officer, FR Kharkongor said the notion of urban apathy is not true as quite a number of voters even in urban areas came out and exercised their right to franchise.
He said urban voting showed a descent pattern.
The Election Commission had organised a series of awareness programmes to address the challenge of urban apathy during elections and even a queue management app was developed but there was hardly any taker for it.
