Bangalore: India's IT city Bangalore has once again lived up to its dubious image of low turn out city! Despite the efforts made by the Election Commission and other non-governmental organizations, the voting percentage did not even touch 55% in the three Lok Sabha seats - Bangalore North, Bangalore Central and Bangalore South. In the last Lok Sabha elections held in 2009, Bangalore had registered 54.60% votes.
Bangalore South, which witnessed a keenly watched electoral battle between IT czar Nandan Nilekani and BJP's five time MP Ananthkumar also registered just 52% percentage of votes.
In Bangalore Central, voting percentage was 52%. Even in Bangalore North, the poll percentage did not touch 51%.
This time, there were a lot of expectations that the poll percentage may go up. But, the polling which started slowly in the morning failed to pick up even after the lunch. Unbearable heat also forced the voters to stay at home. Many polling stations in Bangalore wore a deserted look after lunch and only a few voters came to exercise their democratic right.
The political parties are blaming a long week of holidays for the poor percentage of voting in Bangalore. Last Monday was a government holiday on account of Ambedkar Jayanti. Today was a holiday for voting. Tomorrow is again a government holiday for Good Friday.
According to local people many professionals have gone out of Bangalore on a short vacation. Parents and young voters are also busy with the college and University examination.
The BJP, which had anticipated a low turn out had demanded that the voting in Karnataka should be postponed to some other day. But the Election Commission had rejected its demand.
BPAC - an NGO aimed at increasing voting percentage across Bangalore city has also failed to get voters to polling stations.
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