Updates below: The polling for choosing the candidate from Nagpur constituency for 15th Loksabha has ended. It must be a great relief for all the party workers. And for the party leaders who sweated it out in the blistering Nagpur heat for last 2 months.
And it must be relief for citizens tired of seeing full page political ads in newspapers and less news. The ads may continue for another month, but hopefully a bit less of it.
In Nagpur, only 36% voter turnout was registered till 3 PM. May be because of the heat or because of political apathy. But 36 is a very small number.Hopefully the last two hours of polling would have helped increased this. We will update you soon. [Update I: Overall percentage of polling in Nagpur is a meager 43 percent. Its dismal to say the least]
Now all eyes are set on 16 May when election results will be declared. The festival of democracy has just kickstarted in India. And we hope its truly the democracy that wins in this general election 2009!
Following is the result of the poll that we conducted on the website:
Wil Shri Vilas Muttemwar win Loksabha elections from Nagpur?
| No way! | ||
| 41% | ||
| For Sure! | ||
| 28.2% | ||
| Can't say | ||
| 12.8% | ||
| Who cares? | ||
| 5.1% | ||
Update II
Such a dismal voter turnout in Nagpur cannot be attributed to the blistering heat alone(44 degree Celsius). People did come out of their houses braving the heat. One of the reasons was people were not able to see their names in voting lists. Many had to go back from polling stations because there name was not listed. And probably the biggest reason is people of Nagpur (those having voting rights in Nagpur) do not stay in Nagpur. With young generation moving out of nagpur for jobs, many of them who could have voted for the first time, are not able to exercise their right. Considering the fact that job opportunities are very less in Nagpur, many of them move out of Nagpur after education. Just take a look at your acquaintances, and the picture should be clear.
But, who will win from Nagpur will become clear only on 16 May 2009. Even the political pundits do not have an idea as to whether Banwarilal Purohit will pip Vilas Muttemwar or not. Be sure that suspense will continue to build up as the results approach and we head for the final countdown. Whatever be the result, we hope that coming five years and more be the best years for Nagpur. And the issue of load shedding gets resolved. Is that asking for too much??
