Hyderabad: District Election Officer and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Commissioner D Ronald Rose attended a video conference on Friday, April 5, regarding “low voter turnout” with Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar in Delhi.
Ronald Rose regretted that Hyderabad city recorded a low polling percentage of 45.65 during the 2019 general elections.
Attributing the low voting percentage to the primarily shifting of voters, Mr Rose said, the workers move out of town or country for work; daily wage earners go to work despite a public holiday; voters in single families are allotted to different booths; and there are long waiting times in queues at some places.
Physical barriers like railway crossings and highways also serve as barriers, as some people also have to vote in both the city and the village where they came from, he said.
He explained that efforts have been made to delete all shifted, dead, and absent voters through a concerted exercise, leading to the deletion of 3.41 lakh voters in the GHMC area after assembly elections in addition to 4.37 lakh voters in 2023 before TSLA GE. He also informed us that about 76,000 voters were shifted to address the split voter issue in 15 assembly segments under the Hyderabad district.
Mr. Rose indicated that nearly 4,500 Swatch Autos are being utilized to blast out the songs highlighting the commission messages for increased voter participation. Youths will be employed to manage the voters’ queue in the booth, besides informing voters about queue length using mobile phones.
Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, and Manoj Kumar Sahoo, Deputy Election Commissioner, also attended the conference. Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj and joint CEO Sarafraz Ahmed followed the proceedings from the CEO’s office in Hyderabad through a video conference.
