Low voter turnout in Cantonment

Missing names, difficulty in locating polling dampened the voters’ zeal

At 4 pm on Wednesday the polling station number 193 in Marredpally recorded 30 per cent polling while another polling station number 192 recorded 44 per cent. According to a volunteer Sai Kumar, non-distribution of voter slips by the partymen was one of the reasons for the low voter turnout. “Several families just did not turn up this time around and the ones who came had to run around from one polling booth to another as there were many booths this time,” he said.

Meghna Reddy, a resident of Teachers Colony, was red-faced when she found that her name was deleted from the list. “I have all the documents and did vote the last time around. It is strange that my name was deleted from the voters list,” she said.

At certain polling stations, such as polling station No 108 and 109, the percentage of votes polled by 4.30 pm was 48 and 50 per cent respectively. The presiding officer Mohammed Saduddin said that till 1 pm the staff were busy and did not get rest but in the afternoon the flow of voters reduced considerably.

In areas where there were low-income groups and slums the voter turnout was considerably high.

Missing names

The common complaint in most polling stations was missing of names and difficulty in finding polling booths. Swetha, a housewife, said, “We returned to the city after a month and have our old voter ID cards. Recently, we shifted to our new residence and also enquired if the voter slips were delivered. But we were disappointed to know that they were not. Nevertheless, we went to the polling booth with Aadhaar cards but the authorities were helpless.”