AMRITSAR: DULL CAMPAIGN DISILLUSIONED URBAN VOTERS

AMRITSAR: After witnessing a jump in the voter turnout during the last two parliamentary elections (2009 and 2014), Amritsar Lok Sabha segment witnessed 56.3 percent polling, a sharp dip of 12 percentage points in comparison to the 2014 polls.

Uninterest among the urban voters in comparison to their rural counterparts contributed to the dismal turnout. The polling in urban segments was 53.2 percent while it was 60.7 percent in rural segments.

Voter turnout in the general elections had never been high in this constituency which has five urban assembly segments and four rural assembly segments.

During the general elections of 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004, the polling percentage was 57.6 percent, 53.7 percent, 47.3 percent and 55.05 percent, respectively.

In the 2009 elections, BJP’S Navjot Singh Sidhu defeated Congress’s OP Soni by a small margin of 6,858 votes and the polling was 65.9 percent. The segment witnessed an all-time high turnout of 68.4 percent in 2014 Lok Sabha elections when the fight was between Arun Jaitley of the BJP and Capt Amarinder Singh of the Congress.

Barring Attari where polling percentage (49 percent), lowest in all nine assembly segments, polling was above 60 percent in all other rural segments. Among urban segments, Amritsar (north) and Amritsar (central) saw highest turnout of 57%.

Though BJP heavyweights, including national president Amit Shah, addressed rallies in support of party candidate Hardeep Singh Puri, no Congress bigwig campaigned for their nominee Gurjit Aujla.

Prof Jagroop Singh Sekhon, head of GNDU’S political science department, said, “The Congress MLAS did not make efforts to ensure voters’ participation and there was also disenchantment over the choice of candidate. Also, the Congress was overconfident of victory.”