Council polls turnout: Amravati teachers’ at 62.54% and Pune teachers’ at 57.89% by 2 pm; the three graduates’ seats between 36% and 41%

Voting for five seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council ended at 4 pm on Friday, 23 October. By 2 pm, the two teachers’ seats were far ahead of the three graduates’ seats. Official figures reported by PTI put Amravati Division Teachers’ at 62.54 per cent and Pune Division Teachers’ at 57.89 per cent. Among the graduates’ seats, Pune division had reached 40.6 per cent, Nagpur division 38.88 per cent and Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) division 36.02 per cent. These are mid-afternoon figures, not the final turnout: polling went on for two more hours, and when this report was published the returning officers had not released final provisional figures for any of the five seats. Counting is on Tuesday, 27 October.

Turnout at 2 pm, seat by seat

• Pune Division Graduates’: 1,57,528 of 3,88,019 voters had voted (40.6 per cent).
• Nagpur Division Graduates’: 99,378 of 2,55,603 (38.88 per cent).
• Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) Division Graduates’: 1,17,686 of 3,26,700 (36.02 per cent).
• Amravati Division Teachers’: 22,394 of 35,810 (62.54 per cent).
• Pune Division Teachers’: 35,860 of 61,940 (57.89 per cent).
• All five seats together: 4,32,846 votes from 10,68,072 registered voters, or about 40.5 per cent. This total is our own addition of the five official figures.

Polling hours were 8 am to 4 pm. In four talukas of Gadchiroli district (Etapalli, Bhamragad, Sironcha and Aheri), polling was set to close at 3 pm for security reasons, ETV Bharat reported.

How the numbers rose through the day

• Nagpur graduates’: 9.20 per cent at 10 am, then 23.93 per cent (61,173 votes) at noon, according to election administration figures carried by Nagpur Today.
• Aurangabad graduates’: just 6.52 per cent (21,293 votes) in the first two hours, Lokmat reported from official divisional figures. Sarkarnama put the noon figure at 21.84 per cent.
• Pune division: at noon, 31.34 per cent in the teachers’ seat and 23.41 per cent in the graduates’ seat, according to Lokmat.
• Amravati teachers’: 36.24 per cent across the division at noon, according to the district-wise table published by Pudhari.

District-wise turnout

District figures have been reported only for some districts and at different times of day, so they cannot be set side by side with each other or with the seat totals above.

• Nagpur graduates’ at 2 pm: Gadchiroli 46.51 per cent (6,329 of 13,608), Wardha 46.42 per cent (10,093 of 21,742), Chandrapur 42.52 per cent (13,718 of 32,262), Gondia 41.36 per cent (9,171 of 22,176), Bhandara 36.85 per cent (7,868 of 21,349) and Nagpur 36.13 per cent (52,199 of 1,44,466). More than half of the seat’s voters are in Nagpur district, which had the lowest rate at 2 pm.
• Amravati teachers’ at noon (Pudhari): Buldhana 37.60 per cent, Amravati 37.49, Akola 36.05, Washim 36.02 and Yavatmal 32.91.
• Pune district at 2 pm, from the divisional commissioner’s office figures reported by Loksatta: graduates’ 39.79 per cent (35,145 of 88,202) and teachers’ 49.54 per cent (8,334 of 16,822).
• Solapur district at noon (Lokmat): graduates’ 24.01 per cent and teachers’ 29.67 per cent.
• Aurangabad graduates’ at 10 am (Lokmat): Jalna 8.18 per cent, Beed 8.15, Parbhani 7.92 (2,111 of 26,664) and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, the lowest, at 3.56 (3,319 of 93,318).

How this compares with 2020

• Amravati teachers’: in 2020, 30,918 of 35,622 voters cast a ballot, about 86.8 per cent, according to Pudhari. Of those, 1,089 ballots were rejected and 29,829 were valid; the valid total matches the Chief Electoral Officer’s 2020 result sheet.
• Nagpur graduates’: Lokmat puts the 2020 turnout at 64.38 per cent.
• We did not find a reliable 2020 turnout figure for Pune graduates’, Pune teachers’ or Aurangabad graduates’, so we have not made a comparison for those seats.
• Keep in mind that a 2 pm figure from this year is not directly comparable with a final figure from 2020.

Incidents

We found no statement from a returning officer, district collector or the police reporting an incident that disrupted polling at any of the five seats. Some candidates and parties made allegations about how the poll was conducted; we found no response to them from election officials, so we have not reported them here.

Counting on Tuesday, 27 October

• Pune graduates’ and Pune teachers’: the badminton hall of the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex at Balewadi, Pune.
• Aurangabad graduates’: from 8 am at M/s Resonte Logistics LLP, Plot E-54, MIDC Chikalthana, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, according to the city police.
• Amravati teachers’: Lokshahi Bhavan in Amravati, where the ballot boxes are being kept in a strong room.
• Nagpur graduates’: we have not found an official announcement of the counting venue.
• Every ballot is counted by hand, and a candidate needs a quota of half the valid votes plus one. If no one reaches it on first preferences, the lowest candidates are eliminated in rounds, so final results may come late on Tuesday night or on Wednesday.

Also read: How Tuesday’s count works: the quota, preference votes and counting venues

Also read: Vidarbha polling guide: voters and polling stations by district

Sources: PTI / ThePrint (2 pm turnout, all five seats); Nagpur Today (Nagpur, 2 pm by district); Nagpur Today (Nagpur, noon); Lokmat (Nagpur, 2 pm and 2020); Lokmat (Marathwada, first two hours); Lokmat (live updates: Pune division and Solapur at noon); Loksatta (Pune district, 2 pm); Sarkarnama (Marathwada, noon); Pudhari (live updates: Amravati teachers’ at noon); Pudhari (Amravati teachers’, 2020); Chief Electoral Officer, Maharashtra: 2020 result sheet; ETV Bharat (Gadchiroli timing); Free Press Journal (Pune counting centre); Pudhari (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar counting centre); Pudhari (Amravati strong room)