Udayan Hazarika
(The writer can be reached at udayanhazarika@hotmail.com)
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has recently published a detailed statistical report concerning the last general elections to the Lok Sabha held in April-May 2024. As per the ECI’s report, the total number of electors registered for these elections was 97.79 crore as against 91.05 crore in the last general elections to Lok Sabha in 2019. Thus, there was a rise of 7.40 percent of voters in the 2024 elections. Of the total electors, 64.64 crore cast their votes in the 2024 elections, constituting 65.98 percent as against 67.09 percent in the last Lok Sabha elections. Assam’s Dhubri Parliamentary Constituency is recorded as having the highest turnout of voters with 92.3 percent of votes, while Sri Nagar is recorded as having the lowest turnout of voters (38.7 percent). As regards the gender-wise breakdown of the electors, the report shows that the total strength of the male electors was 50.24 crore (i.e., 51.38 percent), while the number of female electors was 47.55 crore (48.62 percent), and the strength of the third-gender electors was 48,194. The state having the highest numbers of female electors was Puducherry, with 53.03 percent, followed by Kerala, 51.56 percent. The Poll Panel reports show that the numbers of male voters were 32.94 crore (i.e., 65.57 percent of the total male electors), while the numbers of female voters were 31.28 crore (i.e., 65.78 percent of the total female electors). Thus, although marginally, more among the female electors cast their votes in this election than the male electors. This happens for the second time after 2019, when the proportion of male electors who voted was 67.01 compared to the 67.18 percent of female electors who voted. Assam’s Dhubri constituency achieved the distinction of having the highest numbers of female voters, i.e., 92.17 percent casting votes, followed by the Tamluk constituency of West Bengal with 87.5 percent of the electors casting their votes.
Apart from the above, there were also 42.82 lakh postal votes. Out of the total votes cast, i.e., 64.64 crore, total valid votes are accounted for 63.90 crore. There are as many as 10.58 lakhs of votes that were rejected, of which 535,825 were postal votes and 522,513 were EVM-rejected votes. The number of NOTA votes cast was 6,371,839, while the number of tendered votes was 9,634. In the case of the third gender, the percentage of votes polled was just about 27.09 percent. The position in the case of NRIs coming to cast their votes is far less than this. Altogether, 119,374 NRIs registered their names as overseas voters in the 2024 elections (of which as many as 89,839, or 75.26 percent, were from Kerala.), as against 99,844 registered in the 2019 elections. However, only 2958 voters, comprising 2.48 percent of voters, have come up to cast their votes in the 2024 elections.
Institutional statistics show that there were as many as 10.51 lakh polling stations in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, each having an average number of 931 electorates. Polling passed off peacefully in almost all these polling stations except in the case of 40 stations where repolling was ordered. Out of the total of 542 constituencies, 411 were unreserved constituencies, 84 were marked for scheduled caste candidates, and the remaining 47 were marked for scheduled tribe candidates. In as many as 175 constituencies, the number of contestants was 15, while in 198 constituencies, the number of candidates was between 11 and 15, and in 151 constituencies, the number of contestants was between 6 and 10. A total of six national political parties took part in these elections—they were, namely, the Aam Admi Party (AAP), BJP, Bhartiya Samajwadi Party (BSP), CPI(M), INC, and NPEP. The total vote share of these national parties comes to 63.35 percent of the total valid votes. Apart from these, there were also 47 state parties and 690 registered (unrecognised) parties.
The total number of nominations filed in these elections was 12,459, of which only 8,350 were found valid after deducting those who withdrew their names and those whose names were rejected on various grounds. The Malkajgiri Parliamentary constituency of Telangana has the distinction of having the highest number of nomination recipients, with 114 nominations, while Dibrugarh of Assam has the distinction of being the recipient of the lowest number of nominations, with only three nominations. Among these, the numbers of women candidates in these elections were the highest of all the Lok Sabha elections conducted so far. As many as 800 women candidates were in the fray, which spread over 390 seats—the highest so far. In the 2014 general elections to Lok Sabha, the number of women candidates who contested was 668 from 377 constituencies, which rose to 726 candidates in the 2019 elections but with a decline in the coverage of constituencies to 372. In 2014 the success rate of women candidates was 09.28 percent (62/668); in 2019, it marginally rose to 10.74 percent; however, in 2024 the percentage again declined to 09.25, with the number of seats won being 74. As many as 629 candidates lost their deposits in these elections. The highest number of women candidates contested from any constituencies was 8, which were recorded in three constituencies, namely Baramati in Maharashtra, Secunderabad in Andhra Pradesh, and Warangal in Telangana—all from Southern India. The highest numbers of women contestants come from Maharashtra, with 111 contestants, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 80 candidates and Tamil Nadu with 77 candidates. There were 152 constituencies sans any women contestants. Of these, 30 were in Uttar Pradesh, 15 in Bihar, and 14 were in Gujarat. There were 279 women candidates who contested independently.
Of the total of 8359 contestants, 7553 were male contestants, comprising 90.36 percent, of which 468 were elected, and 6555 contestants have forfeited their deposits. The proportion of male and female members in the House was 74:468, slightly more than 1:6 (15.81%). Altogether, 3921 independent candidates contested the elections, and only 7 of them were elected, while 3905 contestants forfeited their deposits. Total votes polled by these independent candidates were 2.79 percent of the total valid votes as against 2.68 percent in the last Lok Sabha poll of 2019.