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Voter turnout dipped in 2024 Lok Sabha polls though overall voters increased: ECI

Dec 26, 2024 04:18 PM IST

Of the 642,139,275 votes cast through EVMs, 51.29% votes (329,361,948) were cast by men, 48.7% (312,764,269) by women, and 0.002% (13,058) by the third gender.

The voter turnout in the 2024 general elections dipped by a little more than 1.3 percentage points in the past decade, from 67.3% in 2014 to 65.978% this year, even as the number of votes cast increased by 5.3%, from 614 million in 2019 to 646.4 million in 2024, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said on Thursday.

A volunteer assists an elderly voter in wheelchair at a polling station in Bengaluru during the Lok Sabha elections in April 2024. (PTI Photo)
A volunteer assists an elderly voter in wheelchair at a polling station in Bengaluru during the Lok Sabha elections in April 2024. (PTI Photo)

According to 42 statistical reports released by the ECI, the number of eligible voters rose by 7.43% from 911.9 million in 2019 to 979.8 million in 2024. These reports are released a few months after every Lok Sabha election.

The report stated that 646,420,869 votes were cast via electronic voting machines (EVMs) in 2024, of which 4,281,594 (0.67%) were cast through postal ballots. Of the overall votes cast (EVMs and postal ballots), 638,990,692 were deemed valid, while 1,058,338 were rejected or not counted.

To be sure, no votes were cast in one parliamentary constituency of Surat (Gujarat) as the candidate won uncontested. However, of the 542 constituencies that voted, 11 saw a voter turnout of less than 50%, with Srinagar seeing the lowest turnout at 38.7% vis-a-vis 14.4% in 2014. Assam’s Dhubri, on the other hand, saw the highest turnout at 92.3%.

The six national parties that participated in the general elections — Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BJP), CPI(M), NPEP — accounted for 63.35% of all the valid votes cast.

The BJP secured 235,974,144 votes, accounting for 36.93% of the votes cast, followed by the Congress at 136,758,952, or 21.4%. The BJP had the highest percentage in Tripura (71.77%), while Congress had the highest in Puducherry at 53.37%.

In Uttar Pradesh, even though the Samajwadi Party won 37 seats, it got 33.84% of the valid votes cast, compared to the BJP which won 33 seats despite getting 41.67%.

Of the 8,359 candidates who contested the elections, 7,190 (or 86%) forfeited their deposits, 54.3% (3,905) of which were by independent candidates. A total of 3,921 independent candidates contested and accounted for 2.79% of the total valid votes. Only seven were elected.

As many as 230 candidates secured 40-50% of votes cast in their constituencies. Only seven winning candidates secured more than 70% of votes from those cast in their constituencies, while only five secured less than 30%.

Of the 642,139,275 votes cast through EVMs in 2024, 51.29% votes (329,361,948) were cast by men, 48.7% (312,764,269) by women, and 0.002% (13,058) by the third gender. At 13,058, voters from the third gender saw a 27.09% voter turnout, up from 14.64% in 2019. Puducherry had the highest share of women voters (53.03%), followed by Kerala (51.56%).

The number of women candidates rose from 726 in 2019 to 800 in 2024, with the highest number of women candidates coming from Maharashtra (111), Uttar Pradesh (80) and Tamil Nadu (77). However, there were no women candidates in 152 constituencies.

The number of registered PwD electors rose by 46.4% from 6,167,482 in 2019 to 9,028,696 in 2024. The number of registered overseas electors rose by 19.6% from 99,844 in 2019 to 119,374 this year.

Meanwhile, the number of polling stations increased by 1.43%, from 1,037,848 in 2019 to 1,052,664, but only 40 polling stations saw repolls this year compared to 540 in 2019. At eleven, the maximum number of repolls were held in the constituency of Inner Manipur, followed by Arunachal West (8) and Outer Manipur (6). The state of Manipur saw the highest number of repolls.

On average, there were 930 electors per polling station, while only three parliamentary constituencies had more than 3,000 polling stations.

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