Mediocre Voter Turnout -> What to expect on June 4?

The Lok Sabha elections are underway with great rigor in India and its last few stages are fast approaching where a new government (or the same government will be formed) on June 4. With the 5th phase of the elections, it is easy to observe that voter turnout across the states has been mediocre in the low 60% to close to 70%. In some states like Maharashtra, the voter turnout has significantly dropper by over 8% from the last elections. Voter turnout is often an indicator of anti-incumbency or the direction in which the elections are headed.

The low voter turnout often indicates that the same government may be coming to power as the citizens may not be interested in punishing the incumbents, it can be a mixed bag leading to a turnaround in the election results as well. One such example is that of 2004 elections where a voter turnout as low as 62% was sufficient to topple the NDA led government. This election has often been called as a foregone conclusion owing to BJP’s power and the magnetic personality of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the storyline should not be very different on June 4. There are some watchouts linked to voter turnout which may point to a surprise, but that may end up being limited to certain states and not at a national level.

Despite massive awareness, a low voter turnout is a cause of concern as people may not be interested in the democracy and bringing a government of their choice to power. There are many factors that could be influencing this.

1. The irrelevance of the vote: The lack of a strong opposition and omnipresence of BJP often makes a citizen feel less valued on their right to vote as a lot of people assume that the incumbent government will come back to power. This leads to people avoiding stepping out to cast their vote.

2. Lazy Urbanization: Urbanization is happening at a rapid scale in India. This has led toa hectic lifestyle and people in the cities often end up seeing the vote day as a holiday when they can relax. Their constant angst against any government inhibits them from voting as the thought process is inclined towards nothing happening with their votes.

3. MP driven politics: The member of parliament from different constituencies are very powerful and want to drive the tide in their favor with the limited set of groups/communities they know. They often end up going goodies and compensation to even abstain from voting at time. This ensures that they retain their seat and mitigate any chance of a surprise result.

June 4 may already have a winner, but mediocre voter turnout could also indicate that people do not want to vote for the existing government and a repeat of 2004 elections could be occurring. This is a highly unlikely event owing to the existing dynamics and weak opposition, but the constantly low voter turnout is a problem for the machine called democracy.