Punjab voters disillusioned with political parties, indicates turnout: Experts

Vishav Bharti

Chandigarh, February 21

The state witnessed the lowest voter turnout of the past two decades in this elections. If experts are to be believed the polling reflects the people’s diminishing hope in political parties and disillusion with the electoral process.

In the last elections, the vote poll percentage was 77.40. In 2002, it was 65.14 per cent, when in a tight contest with the SAD-BJP combine, the Congress had come to power.

No wave

It is clear that there was no wave in favour of any political party. Instead it shows people are going away from the political parties and populist promises failed to seduce voters. —Prof Ashutosh Kumar, Panjab university

The low polling indicates it was not a vote for change, says Dr Promod Kumar of Institute for Development and Communication. “If the number of polled votes decline, it indicates not much choice was available for the voters. It also shows people preferred to stay away from the poll process. It means options were many but choice was not available to the voters,” he says.

Prof Ashutosh Kumar, Department Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh, says this election has proved that there was no big vote mobliser. “In the last elections, the polling was higher as Capt Amarinder Singh emerged as the vote mobliser. But in this election he was a spent force and other leader emerged to that stature,” he stresses. He adds Channi was supposed to moblise the Dalit votes but he couldn’t do that.

Jatinder Singh, who teaches political science at Panjabi University, Patiala, says not just disillusionment, but the low polling also reflects resentment of the people.