Bengaluru, often recognised for its active civic engagement, has unfortunately maintained its disheartening trend of low polling percentage during the recent 2023 Assembly polls. Despite concerted efforts by the Election Commission to address this issue, such as scheduling the election on a Wednesday to avoid a long weekend and ensuring that offices grant their employees a day off to encourage voting, the city’s voter turnout remained disappointingly low.
Despite Karnataka achieving its highest-ever polling percentage of 72.81 percent, the provisional polling figures at the end of May 10 revealed comparatively lower turnout in certain regions of Bengaluru. BBMP (Central) reported a polling percentage of 55.45 percent, BBMP (North) at 52.88 percent, BBMP (South) at 52.8 percent, while Bengaluru Urban stood at 56.98 percent. These numbers indicate a contrast to the overall state performance, surpassing the previous turnout of 72.13 percent recorded in 2018.
In response to the lower voter turnout in Bengaluru, a section of Bengalureans expressed their disappointment and directed their frustration towards the ‘urban’ class for their perceived lack of participation. Many individuals took to the micro-blogging site to express their discontent and criticised the digital dynamos for their apparent hypocrisy of being vocal on Twitter but not showing up at the polling booths.
Embarrassing. That’s all I can say. All of you “Bangalore infra sucks” (it does) crowd that lives here + refused to get your names included in the voters list or just refused to go out and vote – I hope you continue to enjoy your armchair Twitter activism. pic.twitter.com/pryIdApPdc— Geetanjali Chitnis (@geetanjalic) May 11, 2023
A record 73% votes have been cast for the Karnataka Assembly and only 54.5% ( even lower than last poll) have been cast by the people of Bangalore Urban while voters on Twitter probably will be more than 50% from urban Bangalore in Karnataka. This is the democracy of India.— Pankaj Raman (@pankajraman77) May 11, 2023
Bangalore jaisi IT hub city me rehne wale Vote Karne to jayenge nahi par jab poora city flood me doob jaayega to Twitter par aakar royenge— Minty Sharma (@MintOminty) May 10, 2023
Dear @elonmusk .Please don’t allow the people in Karnataka, especially in Bangalore to log into Twitter unless they vote. Their first tweet must be the one with a pic showing ink mark on a finger. That should serve as a biometric login for today..Please do the needful. TIA.— (@haage_summane) May 10, 2023
A smooth traffic was observed on the day of election in Bangalore. Maybe Bangaloreans need more such days that’s why they didnt vote . pic.twitter.com/AbpmoazwZL— Rahul Robin (@comicrahulrobin) May 11, 2023
What happened to the Twitter tigers of Bangalore? Why didn’t they turn up to vote in Bangalore?— Ravi (@cvrchandra10) May 11, 2023
It’s just a lot more comfortable to just sit and complain on Twitter. Who wants to participate in democracy when you can live in the twitter bubble. 10 people will RT your feelings about problems you face in Bangalore and you can feel validated. Haha.— Ramakrishnan Lokanathan (@greatindianramu) May 11, 2023
Bengaluru’s electoral participation has been a subject of concern, with comparatively lower polling percentages witnessed in the past few years. The city recorded a voter turnout of 62 percent and 57 percent during the 2013 and 2018 assembly polls, respectively. Similarly, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Bengaluru’s turnout stood at 54.1 percent, slightly lower than the 56 percent turnout observed in 2014.
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