HYDERABAD: The argumentative Hyderabadi, who is most vocal on social media platforms, has lost a golden opportunity to hold his lawmakers accountable. Going by the dismal voter turnout, it is evident most Hyderabadis decided to stay indoors, comfortably away from the scorching heat.
Despite several voter awareness campaigns, and continuous appeals from politicians asking them to come out and exercise their franchise, it appears these Hyderabadis preferred a holiday at home over their fundamental right.
“Give them free Biryani, then they will vote”. The below-par voter turnout in the four urban constituencies of Hyderabad has opened a barrage of jokes on social media, writing off the average Hyderabadi voter as a ‘Nawaab’ who chooses to sit at home and relish biryani than come out and chose his leaders.
The jokes, perhaps, are not so harsh. After all, the four constituencies of Chevella, Hyderabad, Secunderabad and Malkajgiri recorded the worst voter turnouts in the last 15 years at 53.80 per cent, 39.49 per cent, 39.20 per cent and 42.75 per cent respectively.
Take for instance Secunderabad, which had one of the most exciting contests between BJP’s Kishan Reddy and TRS’ Talasani Sai Kiran. Many hoped the voter turnout would be good this time. Who would lose the chance to participate in such a juicy fight? However, from the 22,20,104 electors, merely 8.70 lakh voters turned up on Thursday.
A similar shocker came from Hyderabad, where the turnout fell from 53.29 per cent in 2014 to 39.49 per cent in 2019.
Even in the largest constituency of Malkajgiri, with such a diverse voter base and an intense battle between Congress’ Revanth Reddy and TRS’ Marri Rajashekar Reddy, the news was just as disappointing. The candidates had done everything under the sun to woo voter. But in the end, nothing mattered. Only 42.75 per cent of registered voters made the trip to polling booths, less than the 51.46 per cent in 2014.
In Serilingampally, where tech-savvy voters make up a good portion of Chevella’s 60per cent urban voter-base, it was the same.
This said, these elections were also one of the most engaging one for the urban voters. There were several voter awareness programs conducted across the city as part of the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation. ECI had conducted mock voting drills, flash mobs and VVPAT awareness drives, all of which cost the exchequer lakhs of rupees. This was also an election that was technologically far more advance, something that should have played in favour of the urban voter. They indeed have greater access to mobile phones, that could have helped them seek assistance to reach polling booths and so on.
In such a scenario, TRS leader KT Rama Rao’s comment from two days ago seems to have come true.
At an interaction with techies, he was about to leave when someone asked him to stay for another question to which he retorted, “You have to let me go, because I have to hit the streets; and I really have to go to people who I believe will actually vote.” Indeed, the responsible voters in the State are anywhere but its urban centres. KTR had urged urban voters in general, to prove him wrong by coming out to vote in large numbers. One wonders not whether these voters are up for the challenge, but whether they even care about it at all.
Awareness campaigns fall on deaf ears
The Election Commission had conducted several voter awareness campaigns in the past few months, spending crores of rupees in the process. However, it seems, none of them worked. Hyderabadis stayed away from polling booths on Thursday, overshadowed by rural voters of constituencies such as Medak, which recorded a 68 per cent turnout