• Source:JND
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The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the schedule for the upcoming Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Elections 2024 on Tuesday. The polling for the 288-seat state assembly is set to be held in one phase on November 20, 2024, and the results will be declared on November 23, 2024. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, meanwhile, said that Wednesday was chosen as the polling day for a specific reason.

"For Maharashtra, this will be in a single phase. Date of notification - October 22, last date of nomination - October 29, scrutiny - October 30, last date of withdrawal - November 4 and the date of polling will be November 20 and counting will be held on November 23," he said.

"You will notice that the date of the poll is Wednesday. This is deliberate and we have tried that it is mid-week so that the issue of urban apathy is handled," he added.

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What is Urban Apathy?

It has been observed that electors in urban areas show indifference towards exercising their democratic rights. Therefore, targeted interventions in urban areas are required to motivate people to come out and vote. This phenomenon has been a cause of concern for a long time. Voter turnout in urban centres has been low in many elections, both in the Assembly and the Lok Sabha. Non-voting is on the rise in India and even across Europe and advanced economies, possibly suggesting that often voters' voices go unheard and unheeded. In such cases, the voter registration does not automatically translate into voter participation.

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It is important to note that the trends of urban apathy were also witnessed during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Colaba in south Mumbai (40 per cent), Pune Cantonment (43 per cent), Mumbadevi and Kurla in Mumbai (44 per cent) and Kalyan near Mumbai (41 per cent) were the areas which recorded among the lowest voter turnout in the Lok Sabha polls this year.

Notably, after the Lok Sabha polls, the political parties demanded that polling should be held in the middle of a week so that people do not club polling days with the weekend and treat it as an extended holiday.

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