Ghaziabad election officials take steps to ensure high turnout

Ghaziabad election officials are holding meetings with resident welfare associations and conducting awareness programmes in schools and colleges to encourage high voter turnout on April 26, when the parliamentary constituency goes to polls in Phase 2 of the Lok Sabha elections, people familiar with the matter said.
Election officials said that they have identified 100 polling booths in two urban segments of Ghaziabad and Sahibabad and have made efforts to ensure that voter turnout is high.
“We have held many meetings with local RWAs and also given polling booths at 35 high-rises in Indirapuram and Vaishali to ensure voters find it easy to vote, to ensure a high voter turnout, especially in urban segments. We are also conducting awareness programs in schools/colleges and holding rallies to encourage voters to vote. Other areas that have a large population of working professionals have been identified in the list of low turnout polling booths and SVEEP activities have been carried out,” said Abhinav Gopal, chief development officer (CDO) and nodal-officer for Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) activities.
To be sure, the Ghaziabad parliamentary constituency recorded a turnout of 56.94% in 2014 and 55.86% in 2019, according to official records of the Election Commission of India.
According to official figures in 2019, the turnout in five segments of Ghaziabad parliamentary constituency stood at 57.76% for Loni, 60.60% for Muradnagar, 49.53% for Sahibabad, 53.38% for Ghaziabad, and 65.67% for Dhaulana.
According to official records, 50 polling booths recorded a turnout between 29.81% and 42.64% in the Ghaziabad segment in 2019. These include polling booths in Bhood, Bharat Nagar, Akbarpur Behrampur, Patel Nagar, Vivekanand Nagar, Jaiprakash Nagar, and Mukund Nagar. In the Sahibabad segment, the lowest turnout booths recorded a turnout in the in range of 19.58% to 33.72%. These include Nandgram, Khoda, Indirapuram, Shaheed Nagar, Shalimar Garden Extension 1, and Arthala.
In the 2022 assembly elections, the lowest turnout booths in Ghaziabad recorded a turnout in the range of 23.57% to 40.33%. In the Sahibabad segment, the lower turnout booths recorded a turnout in the range of 24.48% to 32.31%.
Experts said that rural segments generally record higher voter turnout as they are more aware and do not consider election day a holiday.
“Many people in urban segments consider polling day a holiday. The polling day is April 26 — a Friday and the next two days will be the weekend. So, urban voters may also go on a holiday. So, not much turnout is expected in urban segments this election. Further, the summer heat will also be a contributing factor as elections are being held later than they were in 2019,” said KK Sharma, associate professor, at CCS University, Meerut.
To be sure, eight seats went to polls in western Uttar Pradesh in Phase 1 of the Lok Sabha elections on April 19 and they witnessed a slightly lower turnout than in 2019. Phase 1 polling on April 19 was 61.11% on eight seats in western UP. In 2019, these eight seats recorded an average polling of 66.54%.