The biggest reason for the poor voter turnout in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections is a lack of awareness about the polls, a survey by CVoter and Polstrat, and initiated by the Bengaluru NavaNirmana Party (BNP), revealed.
The survey, conducted a few months ago, shows that more than 30% of the respondents were not even aware that there was an election to the BBMP and that corporators are elected. “This is largely due to a lack of publicity on the same by the government, even though this is the most important election for citizens,” a BNP spokesperson said.
Among those aware of the BBMP elections, the key reason for not coming out to vote is the lack of trust in the existing mainstream parties, with more than 25% of the respondents giving them a thumbs-down.
The most interesting takeaway here is that people who vote for these same mainstream parties during the Assembly and general elections neither trust nor support them at the city level says BNP general secretary Srikanth Narasimhan.
Over 20% of the survey respondents felt the candidates put up were not up to the mark and hence chose to abstain from voting in the BBMP polls.
Voter turnout in the previous BBMP elections has been very poor compared to the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. The overall voter turnout across the city in the 2015 BBMP elections was 49.3% compared to the voting percentage of about 60% in the other elections.
In 2015, ward no 85 (Doddanekkundi) recorded the lowest voting percentage at 37.8%. In other big wards such as Bellandur, Ejipura, Sanjaynagar, Kammanahalli, Aramane Nagar, CV Raman Nagar, Maruthiseva Nagar, Jeevan Bima Nagar, Koramangala, HSR Layout, Girinagar and Kathriguppe, the voter turnout was less than 42%.
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