Urban Voters need to overcome poll apathy

The Maharashtra assembly elections will once again face an acid test in terms of the urban-voter-turnout jinx in the state.

- Aks Ey Rout

Urban India contributes 65% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and cities are being designed as growth hubs to propel India toward becoming a $5-trillion economy. It is, hence, surprising that the urban population lags behind the rural population by about 10 percentage points in voting. Maharashtra has the highest urban population among all states and Union Territories (UTs); at 51 million, it is over 45% of the state's total population, spread over 43 cities and a considerable number of townships. In the last three parliamentary elections, when the national voter turnout consistently went past 66%, backed by a determined pro-gramme of voter engagement by ECL Maharashtra lagged behind with a turnout of 60-61%, owing to the mediocre showing of its cities and towns. In the last Lok Sabha election, Kalyan, Pune, Thane, and South, North-Central and South-Central Mumbai had the unenviable distinction of being among the 50 lowest-tumout constituencies. All constituencies of Mumbai lagged the state average by 5-10 percentage points. In the 2019 assembly polls, against a modest state turnout of 60.56%, constituencies like Colaba, Dombivli, Versova, Ambernath, Airoli, Kalyan West, all in Mumbai and Thane districts, polled at an abysmal rate of 40-42%. Maharashtra's cities might present the worst of urban apathy, but they are not exclusively in t