There are 34,963 & 29,157 service voters in Garhwal & Almora LS constituencies respectively
Sunday, 12 MAY 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The low turnout of voters in the five constituencies of Uttarakhand in the Lok Sabha elections of 2024 has now shifted the focus to the service voters. It is expected that the service votes can influence the outcome in at least two Lok Sabha constituencies, Garhwal and Almora LS constituencies. There are a total of 93,357 service voters which are added in the electoral rolls of Uttarakhand. The residents of Uttarakhand serving in the armed forces of the country are included in the service voters. The State has 90,763 male and 2594 female service voters.
The data of the Election Commission of India shows that Garhwal LS constituency has the highest number of service voters in Uttarakhand. Here there are 34,963 service voters. Similarly there are 29,157 service voters in Almora LS constituency. There are 12,876 and 10,616 service voters in Tehri Garhwal and Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar LS constituencies respectively. Haridwar LS constituency (5,745) has least service voters in Uttarakhand. In the LS elections of 2019, there were 90,845 service voters in the State out of whom 63,222 exercised their franchise which means that the voter turnout of these voters was about 70 per cent.
In the LS Sabha elections of 2024 more than 40,000 service votes have so far been received by the returning officers.
The Additional Chief Electoral Officer (ACEO) Vijay Kumar Jogdande told The Pioneer that the service voters will be accepted till 8 AM on June 4, the day of counting of votes.
The political observers are of the view that due to low voter turnout and inputs of close contest in Garhwal and Almora LS constituencies the importance of service votes has increased.
In Almora LS constituency only 48.74 per cent of total 13,37,648 voters came out to vote on April 19. Similarly in Garhwal, the voter turnout was recorded at 52.42 per cent. The experts point out that since maximum number of service voters is in Garhwal LS Sabha contingency where national chief spokesperson of BJP Anil Baluni is locked in an intense electoral battle with former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ganesh Godiyal of Congress party, the service votes can play a role in deciding the winner. A similar situation can arise in Almora LS constituency, where Ajay Tamta of BJP is pitted against Pradeep Tamta of Congress party.
Service voters-
As per the ECI any individual who is a member of the armed forces of India, armed force of a State or is employed under Government of India is a service voter. Earlier paper postal ballots were used for service voters but from the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) was introduced by ECI. The ETPBS enables the voters to cast their vote from their preferred location which is outside their originally assigned voting constituency. The introduction of ETPBS has addressed the issue of time constraint in the dispatch of postal ballots.
