Haryana Municipal Elections See 46.4% Voter Turnout; March 12 to Count Votes. The polls for 40 civic bodies, including eight by-polls in civic bodies in 18 districts of Haryana, saw a 46.4% voter turnout until late Sunday evening. The overall turnout was likely to go up marginally as polling was still in progress at 130 booths in Faridabad, the state’s biggest civic corporation with 14 lakh voters, when reports were filed.
Haryana State Election Commissioner Dhanpat Singh said the polling was overall peaceful with no incidents of violence reported. “Voting had to be over by 5 p.m., but we extended it by an hour considering the convenience of the voters. Even then, queues were still there at some booths in Faridabad late in the evening,” he said.
Singh admitted that the vote percentage was lower than anticipated, and both the election commission and political parties should study the reasons and take measures to correct it. But he further said that the average vote percentage did not give a complete picture, as the number of voters differed vastly from district to district, varying between 10,000 to 14 lakh.
Among the districts, Fatehabad had the maximum turnout of 85.2% with only 14 polling booths, and Sonipat had the lowest at 31%.
The polls involved general elections to seven municipal corporations—Gurugram, Manesar, Faridabad, Hisar, Karnal, Rohtak, and Yamunanagar—four municipal councils and 21 municipal committees. By-elections were also conducted for mayors of Ambala and Sonipat, along with three presidents and three members in various municipal bodies. In all, an estimated 650 wards voted. The Panipat municipal corporation poll is on March 9, and the vote count will be held on March 12.
The Congress, which was for the first time contesting the municipal elections, had a straight fight with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in most of the municipal corporations. But the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), both led by two rival factions of the Chautala family, boycotted the contest to a great extent, only putting up a few candidates. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was beset by infighting, could put up only three mayoral and six presidential candidates and about 50 candidates for municipal wards.
Political commentators linked the poor show of vote in the mayoral by-polls in Ambala and Sonipat to the absence of a keen contest between big parties and public indifference towards the contests since the posts have less than a year left for their term.
