Voter turnout goes down marginally on Lakshadweep
Lakshadweep islands recorded a marginal decrease in polling percentage from 85.21% in the 2019 parliamentary election to 83.88% in the voting held across 10 islands for the lone Lok Sabha seat on Friday.
However, it is still the highest turnout among the States and the Union Territories that went into the polls on Friday.
As per Election Commission data, 48,468 out of the total electorate of 57,784 turned up to vote in 55 polling booths across the islands. Of them, there were 24,278 women voters against 24,190 men.
Polling was held across Bitra, Chetlat, Kiltan, Amini, Androth, Kalpeni, Minicoy, Kavaratti, and Agatti islands. The lowest voting percentage of 63.70% was recorded on Minicoy island while the rest of the islands recorded a polling percentage in excess of 80%.
Chetlat recorded the highest turnout of 90.81% where 1,867 out of the 2,054 cast their votes in two polling booths..
Unexplained anomaly
As per the data, the sole polling booth in Bitra Island registered a polling percentage of 103.38% as 245 were shown as voted as against the total electorate of 237.
Election authorities were not available to explain this seeming anomaly.
In 2014 and 2019, the electoral battle was between the Congress’ Muhammed Hamdullah Sayeed and Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) Mohammed Faizal P.P. The NCP candidate won last time by a margin of just 823 votes. These old rivals locked horns yet again. But this time, while Mr. Faizal was elded by the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP, the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the party, which has aligned with the BJP in Maharashtra, elded T.P. Yousuf from Kadmat island.