Delhi polls: Muslim-dominated seats record high voter turnouts

NEW DELHI: The voter turnout in the national capital, which was slow till 3 p.m., picked up the momentum in the last few hours and reached 61.7% by 9:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Muslim Constituencies with high turnout

The voter turnout at the three Muslim-dominated seats — Seelampur, Mustafabad and Matia Mahal witnessed the highest turnout across all 70 constituencies.

In Seelampur, the highest turnout, until 9 pm, was recorded at 71.4% followed by Mustafabad at 70.56% while Matia Mahal recorded 70 percent votes, the highest voter footfall.

All three constituencies have lately witnessed protests against the withdrawal of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and a proposed pan-India National Register of Citizens (NRC) which has been ongoing since mid-December.

Long queues were seen outside several polling booths, in other Muslim constituencies like Jaffrabad, Jamia Nagar, Turkman Gate.

Shaheen Bagh, which has been in the headlines for the massive anti-CAA protest for over a month falls in the Okhla constituency also saw long queues at polling stations.

Babarpur and Seema Puri were recorded at 65.4 percent, and 68.08 percent, respectively.

Constituencies with low turnout

Ballimaran — being Muslim-dominated constituencies of Delhi witnessed moderate polling of 58.28 percent.

While the other constituencies like Chandni Chowk registered a turnout at 60.91 percent, Rithala at 59.62 percent and Okhla at 58.83 percent.

Counting of votes will be held on February 1.