PANJIM: The Ganesh Chaturthi festival beginning on Friday took a toll on the by-elections in Panjim and Valpoi Assembly constituencies, which saw a six percent drop in voter turnout on Wednesday as compared to the February 2017 Assembly elections. A total 75.45 percent voters, which is 38,576, turned up at the polling booths.
The by-polls are crucial as they will decide the fate of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is contesting from Panjim, and his coalition government, and that of Health Minister Vishwajit Rane. The fate of seven candidates from the two constituencies was sealed on Wednesday, and the results will be declared on Monday.
“The decline in voting percentage could be attributed to the Ganesh festival. We had done the maximum awareness appealing to people to vote in large numbers,” Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Kunal told media persons. He said the by-elections were conducted smoothly with no major law and order situation reported.
Panjim constituency saw a 70 percent turnout, compared to 77.06 percent in the last Assembly election, which is a decline of 7.06 percent. In all 15,538 people cast their vote, which include 7975 female voters and 7563 male voters.
The constituency with 30 polling stations saw the highest turnout in polling station 21, which had 82.84 percent, whereas polling station 29 recorded the lowest of 59.91 percent.
On the other hand, Valpoi constituency saw a 7.49 percent decline in the voting percentage. The constituency with 46 polling stations recorded 79.80 percent voter turnout as compared to 86.29 percent polling in the last election. Polling station 21 recorded highest percentage of 91.91 percent whereas polling station 2 recorded the lowest of 68.71 percent.
Of the 28,868 voters eligible to vote, around 23,038 cast their vote of which11,652 were male voters and 11,386 were female voters.
The percentage of male voters was on the higher side at 76.92 percent (19,215) compared to female voters at 74.23 percent (19,361) despite having the largest female voters’ population.
North Goa Collector Nila Mohanan said that during the voting process there were no complaints of EVMs or VVPATs which were used for polling. “During the poll process only two EVMs were replaced, that too during the mock poll, but no EVM or VVPAT was replaced during the actual poll,” she said.
The Collector said that there was elaborate security arrangement preventing any untoward incidents.
