By-polls on Saturday, enthusiasm among political class but hardly any excitement among voters

Ahmedabad, 12 September 2014

Polling for 9 assembly seats and 1 Lok Sabha seat will be held on Saturday, September 13th. There are total 67 candidates in fray. Main contest is between BJP and Congress candidates.

Due to continuous rain, by-polls have not attracted much attention of voters. In this circumstances, polling percentage will need to be watched out.

But monsoon is not the only reason responsible for lack of interest among voters. The reason why these by-polls are happening is also responsible. People elected nine MLAs to Gujarat assembly just one and half year back in general elections, but they resigned from their seats after they were elected to Lok Sabha.

Similarly, voters elected Narendra Modi with great excitement on Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, but he vacated Vadodara seat to retain Varanasi seat which was politically a correct decision.

Another reason why by-polls fail to excite the voters this time is that they are not decisive. They are not going to be able to make or break the government.

Another reason why these by-polls have remained the occasion of politicians and not people is that, due to defeat in one after another poll, Congress hasn’t contested employing its full energy.

One more reason is the candidates. Some top leaders, most of them former MPs refused to contest on Congress ticket. Similarly in BJP camp, relatively unknown faces got ticket in some seats.

BJP relies on its page presidents and booth incharges to ensure good polling percentage. Congress relies on its traditional voting class.

In this context it would be interesting to see what is the percentage of voting.