Chennai constituencies register even lower turnout than in 2019 polls

You’ve done it again, Chennai. The city has the dubious honour of the three lowest turnouts in the state, though North Chennai did a little better than Tuticorin. Central Chennai had the lowest turnout of 53.91% on Friday against 58.75% in 2019. South Chennai, which had the lowest turnout in 2019 at 56.92%, dropped to 54.27%.

North Chennai, which traditionally polls more, saw the turnout drop from 64.04% in 2019 to 60.13% on Friday.

The city’s apathy towards voting continue, though the turnout this time was worse than at least the last three Lok Sabha elections.

The awareness campaigns by the Election Commission of India and the Greater Chennai Corporation did not appear to have much of an effect.

There was a small surge towards the end of the day, but this could be attributed to DMK and AIADMK rounding up their voters and bringing them in towards the end.

“More voters turned up in the evening due to the heat,” said J Vanitha, head of sociology department, Loyola College.

So what does this low turnout protend for June 4? “It’s a three-cornered race.

So, DMK still has an advantage,” said political observer Vamsi Chandran.

Some observers said voters in T Nagar, Mylapore and some other places turned out in good numbers as BJP targeted these pockets.

An analysis of voting patterns also revealed that percentage of votes polled till 9am doubled from 4.6% in 2019 to 9.5% in the three constituencies this year.

However, the highest percentage of 15% was recorded in the evening from 3pm to 5pm when the city residents turned up in big numbers after the heat subsided.


There were people like Sasi, 28, who waited an hour under the sun, with her week-old baby in her arms at Kasimdu to vote. And 92-year-old Srinivasa Raghavan, a retired govt offi cial, who queued up in Triplicane.
Then there was Rangamani Ammal, 92, who arrived in a wheelchair to vote in Anna Nagar. In the 71 years since she turned 21, the Class VI dropout has not missed a single election. She cast herfi rst vote in the fi rst general election in 1952 in a govt elementary schook at Erukkattur in Thanjavur.

“I was pregnant with my with third daghter at 21, but it didn’t stop me fromcasting my vote. I felt like an importan person,” she said.