Kasba Peth in Pune, Indapur in dist, Kolhapur in state record highest voter turnout

With 59.26%, Kasba Peth assembly segment has recorded highest voter turnout in Pune city. Indapur with 76.91% turnout tops in rural parts. In Maharashtra, Kolhapur has reported 76.63% — top-performing district in the state.

Although Kasba assembly constituency has set a record for registering the highest voter turnout in the city, both Congress candidate Ravindra Dhangekar and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee Hemant Rasane have claimed that it boosts their chances of win.

Considering the election held five years ago and the by-election of March 2023, the Mahayuti and Maha Vikas Aghadi candidates are claiming that the increase in voter turnout by as much as 10 per cent will lead them to victory.

The voter turnout in this election has increased by around 10 per cent compared to the by-election held two years ago when 50 per cent voters exercised their right in Kasba Peth while in the Lok Sabha election around same number of people had voted.

“Voters from Shaniwar Peth, Narayan Peth and Sadashiv Peth, who had come out for a walk in the cold morning, turned up at the polling booths and exercised their right to vote. Due to this, the voting picked up speed in the first two hours. By 11 am, more than 18 per cent voter turnout had been recorded. There were queues of voters at polling stations in Mahatma Phule Peth, Raviwar Peth, Guruwar Peth and Shukrawar Peth as well,” said Shantanu Kamath of Kasba and a professor of political science.

The voting in Indapur assembly constituency continued till late night. Many polling stations were crowded till afternoon. After 4 pm, voters were seen queuing up till late night at many polling stations.

The voting process was conducted at 337 polling stations in Indapur taluka and 76.91 per cent voting was recorded. The police had deployed heavy security to prevent any untoward incident. Meanwhile, a dispute broke out in the villages of Lakhewadi and Shirsatwadi in the taluka.

Within Kolhapur district, Karvir assembly seat topped the turnout table on Wednesday, surging to 84.96%, and propelling Kolhapur to the top spot in the state with 76.63% polling, slightly higher than the 2019 figure of 74.8%.

Apart from Karvir, where late Congress MLA PN Patil’s son Rahul is in a head-on clash with Shiv Sena’s Chandradip Narke, Kagal and Shirol seats saw high voting. In Kagal, where there’s a stiff competition between Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA and minister Hasan Mushrif and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar)’s Samarjeetsinh Ghatge, nearly 82.51% voters showed up to vote. And in Shirol, where Congress’s Ganpatrao Patil and Mahayuti-backed Rajendra Patil Yadravkar are locked in combat, the turnout was more than 78.08%.

The MVA comprises the Shiv Sena (UBT) led by former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, Congress and Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP), while the BJP, chief minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and NCP of deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar are part of ruling Mahayuti.