Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections: 20 out of 26 assembly constituencies saw lower voter turnout than 2014

Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections: Up to 20 of the 26 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir that held their second round of voting on Wednesday had lower voter participation than during the 2014 assembly elections. Giving the results of the polling conducted on Wednesday, J&K Chief Electoral Officer P K Pole said that an approximate 56.05 percent of voters participated in the six districts.

The Election Commission of India reports that for the assembly segments in the six districts that held ballots on Wednesday, the aggregate voting percentage in the 2014 elections was more than 60%.

Pole noted that since voting was still taking place at certain polling places at 6:45 p.m., the figures were only estimates and may increase.

In the 2014 elections, there were 25 assembly segments spread over the districts of Srinagar, Ganderbal, Budgam, Reasi, Rajouri, and Poonch. Nevertheless, after the delimitation process in 2022, there are now 26 seats total in these six districts, an increase of one seat.

All five assembly segments in the five remaining districts had lower voter participation than the 2014 elections, with the exception of five assembly constituencies in the Srinagar district.

The central Kashmir assembly seats of Budgam (66.32 percent) and Chrar-e-Sharief (82.44%) experienced the largest declines in voter participation in 2014, with a reduction of 15%. Budhal (82.50 percent) saw a loss of 14%.

Even though the turnout in the Reasi district’s Shri Mata Vaishno Devi segment was highest this year at 79.95%, it was still lower than the 82.68 percent registered in 2014—the year the constituency was known as Gool Arnas.

The Habbakadal assembly sector, which has a high voter population of immigrants, had the lowest turnout, at 18.39%, as opposed to 21.31% ten years before.

While voter participation in all districts suffered a decline, it nevertheless was above 50% in all assembly segments, where turnout was up from 2014 levels. None of these segments had voter turnout over the 38% threshold.

In the Jammu division seats, Gulabgarh (73.49), Surankote (75.11), Reasi (71.00), Nowshera (72.00), Kalakote-Sunderbani (68.71), Poonch-Haveli (74.92), Rajouri (70.64), Budhal (68.58), Thannamandi (69.66), and Mendhar (71.08) had the highest segment-wise attendance, according to Pole.

Khansahib (71.66), Kangan (71.89), Chrar-e-Sharief (67.44), Chadoora (55.25), Ganderbal (56.97), Beerwah (63.31), Budgam (51.13), Hazratbal (30.69), Khanyar (26.07), Habbakadal (18.39), Lal Chowk (32.11), Channapora (29.35), Zadibal (30.73), Central Shalteng (31.07), and Eidgah (36.13) were the seats in the Kashmir valley.