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NEW DELHI: Total voter turnout in Phase 2 of the ongoing J&K election was 57.3%, higher than the 52.2% polling recorded in 2024 Lok Sabha polls but lower than the 61.8% turnout in 2014 assembly polls as well as 61.4% in Phase 1 of the current poll.
Mata Vaishno Devi, a new assembly constituency (AC) carved out in the delimitation exercise of 2022, recorded the highest turnout in Phase 2, at 80.5%, while Habbakadal AC in Srinagar polled a mere 19.8% votes.
While the overall female voters’ turnout for Phase 2 polling in J&K, at 56.2%, was 2.1 percentage points less than 58.3% male polling percentage, women’s turnout exceeded that of men in 11 of 26 assembly constituencies that voted on Wednesday. Ten of these 11 constituencies are in Jammu division, while only one — Khansahib — is in Kashmir Valley.
Turnouts were higher across the Valley’s Budgam, Ganderbal and Srinagar districts as compared to 2024 LS polls, but significantly lower in Ganderbal and Budgam, when compared with the 2014 assembly polls. Though Srinagar district recorded a low turnout of around 30.1%, it was better than the 24.8% and 27.7% polling recorded in both 2024 LS elections and 2014 J&K polls respectively.
In Jammu division, all three districts — Reasi, Rajouri and Poonch — recorded lower turnouts than the 2014 assembly polls. Polling in Rajouri and Poonch was better than in 2024 LS elections, but slightly lower in Reasi. While Reasi, where the decline was the sharpest since 2014, had seen a major terror attack in June with nine persons killed after terrorists fired on a bus, Rajouri and Poonch have seen fierce encounters between the security forces and terrorists in the recent months.
The gap between male and female voter turnout was wide in many constituencies of Kashmir region; like, it was over 10.6 percentage points in Zadibal AC, 10.4 in Budgam AC, 9.9 in Lal Chowk AC and 9.6 in Habbakadal AC. Habbakadal by far has recorded the lowest turnout in J&K with a mere 23% of its male electorate and 16.7% of its female electorate turning out to vote. Women voters’ turnout in Eidgah AC and Central Shalteng AC in Srinagar district was lower by almost 8.3 percentage points each.
In Jammu, higher participation of women seemed to pushed up the overall turnouts. Barring Mata Vaishno Devi, where female voting percentage was a marginal 0.7 percentage points lower than men’s, ACs in Jammu region saw women voters’ turnout surpass men’s by anything between 4.1 and 11.1 percentage points. In Kalakote-Sundarbani, which recorded the lowest polling percentage in Jammu region, just 64% of it male voters cast their franchise; however, female voters saved the day with over 74% participation, taking the AC turnout to a decent 68.8%.
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