The voting percentage in Sunday’s Legislative Council poll to the Bangalore graduates constituency was shocking to say the least with hardly 30 per cent of the registered voters turning up to exercise their franchise. Despite increased voter awareness campaigns, the poll percentage was enough to dampen citizen’ groups who had whipped up a storm to enlighten graduate voters. The Bangalore Graduates’ constituency, which had only 66,000 registered voters in the 2006 polls, boasted of 1.10 lakh voters this election. However, the poor show only proved that enrollment drives are simply not enough to ensure voter participation. The situation was no different in other constituencies too.
The MLC polls held across 516 polling booths was peaceful and incident free. But the voter turnout was a mixed bag. The highest voting percentage was reported in South East Teachers’ constituency with 83 per cent, followed by South Teachers’ (66.72%), South West Teachers’ (60.49%), South West Graduates (50.39%) and North East Graduates (41.92%). The voter apathy was evident in the North East Graduates constituency too with booths wearing a deserted look. The voting percentage in the constituency was only 41.92 per cent against last elections’ 62.34 per cent. The highest polling of 46.67 per cent was reported in Koppal and the lowest of 37.40 per cent in Bellary.
In South East teachers constituency, Kolar recorded highest of 86.89 per cent while Davangere recorded the lowest at 71.52 %. The polling for the graduates’ constituency at National College saw BJP’s D.H. Shankaramurthy cast his vote, while Congress candidate S.P. Dinesh exercised his franchise at Kumsi in Shimoga taluk.