People wait in queues before casting their votes in the Assam Assembly elections, at a polling station in Guwahati. (PTI Photo)
The Assam Assembly election saw a high voter turnout of 84.42% as of 5 pm, despite overcast weather and rain in various parts of the state on Thursday.
According to the office of the Chief Election Officer, long queues were seen at several polling stations, even at the closing hour of 5 pm, and the final voter turnout figure will be ascertained after the completion of polling in all locations.
The turnout this time has seen an uptick since the last election, in which the state had registered an 82.42% turnout. It had recorded a similarly high turnout in 2016, when the first-ever BJP government in the state was voted into power after 15 years of Congress governments.
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The turnout was as high as 94.57% in the Dalgaon constituency in central Assam, which is also the most densely populated constituency in the state. Other constituencies to record voter turnouts above 94% were Srinjangram, Jaleshwar and Mankachar. Notably, all of these are constituencies where Bengali-origin Muslims constitute a majority of voters. The community routinely registers a high turnout, something that observers attribute to anxieties surrounding their citizenship status and fears of names being struck off from the electoral rolls.
On the other hand, the urban constituencies in Guwahati city have recorded the lowest turnouts: 71.27% in New Guwahati, 73.98% in Dispur and 75.23% in Guwahati. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s home constituency, Jalukbari, in Guwahati, where he is being challenged by Congress’s Bidisha Neog, has registered a relatively higher turnout at 80.83%.
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