Pune records highest voter turnout among urban districts in state

Indapur, Bhor, Ambegaon, Purandar and Khadakwasla are the constituencies where the voting percentage, compared to the Lok Sabha, increased between 5 and 10 per cent. Only Kasba, Kothrud, and Pune Cantonment have reported a slight dip in voter turnout. All other assembly constituencies reported a one to five per cent rise.

Maval saw the highest rise in voting at 16 per cent as 72.1 per cent cast their vote. Daund saw a rise of 12 per cent in voting with Junnar and Khed Alandi recording a rise of 12 per cent each. Junnar saw a rise of 11 per cent in voting.

Diwase attributed the rise in voter turnout to the extensive outreach and sanitization of the voters list. “During the Lok Sabha elections, we filled out over 60,000 forms on the spot for people who did not find their names in the voters list. Also between January and now, over 7 lakh new voters were added to the list,” he said. As many as 200 new polling booths were added and efforts were made to ensure the voters knew about them.

Pune district happened to record the highest voter turnout as compared to Thane (56.05), Nagpur (60.49), Mumbai Suburban (55.77) and Mumbai city (52.07). Only Nashik, with a little over 67 per cent voter turnout, surprassed Pune in mainly urbanized districts.

Diwase said elaborate arrangements have been made for peaceful counting on November 23. While the eight assembly constituencies in Pune city would have their counting at the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godown in Koregaon Park, those of Bhosari and Pimpri would be carried out in the Balewadi sports stadium.

Pimpri’s counting would happen at Chinchwad while the other assembly constituencies would see their counting happening at the taluka places.