Mumbai's voter turnout: Still big losers compared to Delhi

If you’re in Mumbai today it’s difficult to avoid the joy over the voter turnout with the metropolis reporting that 52.6 percent of the city’s voters had turned up to cast their ballot, the highest percentage of voters in the city since 1991. In Mumbai, almost every English newspaper’s headline has hailed the city’s residents for turning up to vote in what is being seen as a remarkable turnaround in the last 25 years. “Mumbai finally showed on Thursday that it wasn’t going to miss its date with democracy this time,” the Times of India noted.   [caption id=“attachment_1496573” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Voters in Mumbai: AFP[/caption] Others noted how the six constituencies in the city had recorded over 50 percent turnout, with even the notoriously apathetic posh South Mumbai recording 54 percent. A city that has become used to seeing voter turnouts in the 40s, is now cheering wildly for an almost 10 percent rise and bemoaned that the hundreds of voters were unable to find their names of voter lists. The DNA reported that 2 lakh people were disenfranchised due to their names not being on the voters’ list and many of them have said they will complain to the election authorities about it. In contrast to this  self congratulatory, warm, fuzzy feeling that has clearly overtaken Mumbai, in Chennai the mood is far more sombre. The reason? The voter turnout was only 61.13 percent, which the Times of India noted had brought down the overall Tamil Nadu voter turnout figure to 72.83 percent. The newspaper noted almost sadly: “But, the summer heat and the disinclination on the part of many voters to go to polling booths to exercise their franchise brought down the turnout figure in the city constituencies, which is marginally lower than 2009 as well.” Contrast that with the ‘Mumbai is awesome’ headlines for a turnout that was 10 percent lower. Even in Bangalore, whose voter turnout of 54 percent was bemoaned when it was revealed, the voter turnout was higher than Mumbai. Delhi, which also has a reputation for voter apathy,  wasn’t even in the same race as Mumbai this time around, with a 65 percent turnout in the ongoing Lok Sabha election. Different strokes for different folks? Clearly, in this case. While it is not our intention to be complete party poopers - there is obviously obviously some reason for cheer in Mumbai given that more of its citizens turned out to vote than in the last election - there’s no reason to get ecstatic just yet.     Previous bad performances aside, lets get real.  Other metropolises that have voted have shown Mumbai has a long way to go when it comes to getting out to vote. A 50 percent voter turnout is no real reason to celebrate, as what it says, is that half the population of the city has still seen no real reason to go out and cast their ballot. If Mumbai wants to be taken seriously as a politically aware city as opposed to just being business-minded and therefore politically flaky, it still has a lot to do.