Uttarakhand: To boost voter turnout in hills, poll body looks to plains

Uttarakhand Chief Electoral Officer BVRC Purshottam said: “Such voters have their names in the voter lists in their home places in the hills but they are living away in plain areas such as Dehradun, Haldwani and other foothills for jobs. We are trying to approach them and see if they can come on the day of the election and vote.”

Booth-level officers are speaking to such voters over the phone. Polling staff will again make reminder calls to those voters a week before the polling date.

Purshottam said he himself spoke to some voters in three polling booths over the phone.

He said: “The voter turnout of Uttarakhand has always been low. So we are just trying to see how we can increase voter turnout on the day of election. We are focusing on who is within Uttarakhand. As per our data, that is almost 10 per cent of total electors. This exercise is aimed to increase voter turnout by 4 or 5 per cent.”

Purshottam also said that some of these voters had been coming to their home places to vote but there was no data available about their turnout.

As per poll officials in Uttarakhand, the voter turnout in the state in the 2022 Assembly election was 64 per cent and that was better than 2019 Lok Sabha polls (61 per cent).

But that turnout is still low as compared to adjoining states where voters step out of their home places in search of livelihood. For example in adjoining hill state Himachal Pradesh, turnout was 75.78 per cent in 2022 assembly polls and 70.42 per cent in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Another officer said: “The exercise is being done across the state but the main focus is on two districts — Pauri Garhwal and Almora where turnout of voters has been historically low. For example, Almora recorded only 47 per cent polling and Pauri recorded 50 per cent turnout in 2022 Assembly elections.

Pauri Garhwal had recorded the highest migration in one decade before Covid-19 outbreak. Over 73,000 people had migrated from the district in one decade but around 20000 of them had returned to their homes during the lockdown.

On the reasons behind low voter turnout, the CEO said that there were problems with access to many polling booths in the past. He said that new booths have been developed and accessibility has been improved along with programmes of voter awareness.

Uttarakhand has five Lok Sabha seats — Haridwar, Garhwal, Tehri Garhwal, Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar and Almora. BJP had won all seats in the 2019 and 2014 elections.

A migration commission formed by the Uttarakhand government in 2017 to study migration in the state over the past 10 years and to offer suggestions to tackle the issue had found that over 3.5 lakh people migrated from their homes from 2011 onwards in search of better livelihood opportunities, and education and health facilities. As many as 1,768 hamlets in the state had been categorised as “ghost villages”-completely abandoned by residents. Barring Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar, all other districts in the state have hills and maximum migration happens from there only.