Jaipur: The first phase of polling for 12 out of 25 Loksabha seats of Rajasthan ended with apathy of voters. The state recorded 57.87 per cent voter turnout which is around five per cent less than the voting percentage of the 2019 Loksabha election. Voting was generally peaceful and no major incidents came to light of law and order.
Voters of Jaipur City, Jaipur Rural, Alwar, Bharatpur, Dausa, Karauli-Dholpur, Sikar, Churu, Jhunjhunu, Bikaner and Sriganganagar-Hanumangarh and Nagaur seats have exercised their franchise in the first phase but despite all the efforts of the Election Commission, the voting percentage on all the seats was less than the previous election. The lowest voting percentage 49.29 was recorded in Karoli and the highest 65.64 was in the Ganganagar seat.
Experts believe that the voting percentage in Lok Sabha elections generally remains low, but this time hot weather conditions, wedding season and long weekends seem to have affected the voting percentage.
It is worth mentioning here that the Congress had performed better than the BJP on seven out of 12 seats on which voting took place in the first phase in the recently held assembly election and the low percentage of voting is hinting towards better results for Congress which is facing measurable defeats for the last two elections.
