70% seats won by Congress saw high voter turnout

The Congress’ resurgence coincides with high voter turnout in the constituencies where it won, in a Lok Sabha election that has reported an overall dip in votes cast from 2019. While the vote share per candidate is yet to be made public by the Election Commission, it is clear that of the nearly 100 seats where the Congress has scored victory, most seats reported a high voter turnout of 65-70% or more. As many as 68 of the 98 seats where the Congress was leading prominently or seen winning on the counting day have reported a voter turnout of over 65%, EC data show. Of these, 38 posted a turnout of more than 70% — from 92% at Dhubri in Assam that elected Rakibul Hussain with a margin of 9.5 lakh votes, to 84% in Lakshadweep. Wayanad, which Rahul Gandhi won with a 3.6 lakh vote margin, reported a 73.5% voter turnout. Pradyut Bordoloi retained his seat in Nagaon which reported a near 85% voter turnout.

In BJP stronghold Gujarat, Geniben Nagaji Thakor of the Congress broke through and won the party its sole Lok Sabha seat in Banaskantha, which reported a near 70% turnout. Inner Manipur, with its 80% turnout, brought in Congress’ Angomcha Bimol Akoijam. Even overall trends on turnout bear out this pattern. When seen conversely, of the 58 seats across the seven phases which reported a poor voter turnout — lower than 55% — only seven have gone with the Congress while as many as 30 have been won by the BJP.

BJP’s Vivek Thakur won Nawada in Bihar which posted a 43% turnout, while Ravi Shankar Prasad scored a victory in Patna Sahib where only about 46% voters turned out to vote. Ajay Tamta of the BJP scored victory in Almora in Uttarakhand which recorded a 48.7% turnout. In all, among the ten constituencies which reported the lowest turnout, six have gone to BJP. In contrast, three of the ten constituencies with highest turnout have gone to the Congress, while the TDP has won four.

The BJP has only one of these ten — Bishnupur in West Bengal which recorded a 85% turnout where BJP’s Soumitra Khan had a 6,000-plus lead Tuesday night. For the Congress, vote-count wise, after Rakibul Hussain’s 9.5 lakh lead in Dhubri, Sasikanth Senthil has a lead of 5.5 lakh margin in Tiruvallur. In Rohtak, Deepender Singh Hooda was leading with a near 3.4 lakh margin. Kumar Selja recorded a 2.6 lakh margin win in Sirsa, while Hibi Eden retained Ernakulam with a 2.5 lakh margin. However, while there is a clearly high voter turnout in seats wrested by the Congress, there is a question that arises on the female voters and its support to the grand old party