Steep fall in number of voters in Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam: There has been a precipitous decline in the number of voters in the recently published revised electoral rolls of Visakhapatnam district. The net decrease in the voter population in the district sums up to 70,060  from 34.09 lakh in 2015 to 33.38 lakh in 2016. The officials claim that they streamlined the list meticulously through Aadhaar seeding and strict door-to-door surveying. However, many new voters haven’t been registered to exercise their franchise, which reflects failure on the part of the officials in creating awareness among the youth.

Other than a mild increase in the number of voters in Bheemili, Vizag (South), Paderu and Pendurthi constituencies, all other constituencies of the district had seen a fall in the number despite the rise in population.

According to projections as per the 2011 census, the district has a population of about 45.47 lakh citizens. Consequently, the elector-population ratio has dropped from 75.8 with a population of 44,95,853 in 2015 to 73.4 in 2016. In Visakhapatnam city itself, the number of voters in the Vizag East constituency has gone down from 2,54,672 to 2,38,597 and in the West constituency from 2,35,347 to 2,22,5387.

Same has been the case with other constituencies, including Gajuwaka, Chodavaram, Madugula, Narsipatnam, Payakaraopeta, etc. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a district official informed that the enumerators conducted a strict door-to-door voter survey and weeded out the double entries, duplicates and the deceased from the list, which otherwise would have bloated. But when asked about the low turnout for new voter registrations, he agreed to low response from the youth.

However, some dispute the version of the officials and said that the officials have not created much awareness in the youth who have completed 18 years of age by Jan. 1, 2016. “The Election Commission should conduct a special registration drive in the degree and engineering colleges to bring more youth on to the list,” said K.S. Prabhakara Rao, an educationist. When it comes to elector-population ratio, Gajuwaka tops with 82.9 per cent and Araku Valley scores the least with 65.8. Bheemili has the highest female elector-population with 82.1 per cent.