Polling percentage may have seen a dip, but the number of actual voters has gone up, a SBI research report said. It said that in the first two phases, 8.7 lakh additional voters have voted. The report also expects ‘J’ shape voting.

On April 30, the Election Commission said that the polling percentages in the first phase (April 19) and the second phase (April 26) were 66.1 and 66.7 per cent, respectively.  Based on the percentage in the first two phases (69.4 per cent and 69.3 per cent) of 2019, it was said that voting had dipped this year. . However, the SBI research report has a different take. The report is authored by a research team headed by Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Adviser at SBI.

“The unending debates propagated around supposedly low voter turnout in the first two phases of the General Elections 2024, which is a myth,” the report said. Rather than going into percentage, the report has analysed absolute number of people who voted during first two phases. It may be noted that the Election Commission is yet to publish the absolute number of people who voted so far in 2024.

The team at SBI Economic Research used electoral data provided on States’ election commission websites and the voter turnout ratio to calculate the absolute number of voters who cast their votes in each constituency during 2019 and 2024. Accordingly, it analysed data from 184 constituencies (out of 191 polled during two phases in 2024 as some seats were not similar in 2019 and 2024.

State-wise trends

Based on this, the report said that provisionally, a total of 20.7 crore voters cast their votes in 2024 compared with 20.6 crore who voted in 2019, showing an increase of 8.7 lakh voters. At the same time, the number of female voters increased by 5.7 lakh while male voters increased by 3 lakh.  “Excluding Nagaland, where there were calls of vote boycott, the increase in voters were 11 lakh and increase in women voters were 6.8 lakh,” the report said.

Analysing State-wise trends, Karnataka accounts for the highest ncrease in voter numbers in 2024, followed by Assam and Maharashtra. At the same time, Kerala accounted for the largest decline in several voters in 2024, followed by UP and Rajasthan. Further, in 85 constituencies, absolute voters have increased by more than 1 lakh. In 25 constituencies, there is a status quo, and in 74 constituencies, absolute voters declined by more than 1 lakh votes. Hence, “60 per cent of constituencies exhibited either increase or status quo,” it said.

Using various models, the report expects that for the remaining phases, the average male voter per PC (Parliamentary Constituency) will be 9.61 lakh and the average female voter 8.98 lakh. The turnout within PC is expected to be on the higher side in the coming phases. “We also believe the scorching summer and sweeping heat waves might have played a spoilsport for a certain percentage of voters willing yet unable to exercise the franchise,” the report said.

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