The Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra made her electoral debut, saw a voter turnout of around 65 per cent during the bypoll on Wednesday.
This was a decline from the close to 74 per cent turnout recorded in the polls held in April, when her brother and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi contested from the hill constituency.
It was over 80 per cent when Rahul contested the polls from the hill constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
When polling started at 7 am, it progressed briskly, raising hopes among the political parties that the voter turnout would surpass the previous one. However, those hopes faded as the turnout crossed the 50 per cent mark after eight hours of polling.
The figures released by the poll panel after the conclusion of voting at 6 pm put the turnout at 64.69 per cent.
These figures are not final as many voters are still queued outside polling stations in the LS constituency, the Election Commission (EC) said.
The Congress-led UDF dismissed concerns that the reduced voter turnout would adversely affect the margin they expected for Priyanka.
According to Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, V D Satheesan, the lower turnout is due to the lack of enthusiasm among voters in areas dominated by the CPI(M)-led LDF.
On the other hand, the LDF and BJP-led NDA rejected the UDF claim and contended that the reduction in voter turnout was due to people not turning up to vote in areas dominated by the Congress and its allies.
Meanwhile, in the Chelakkara assembly constituency in Thrissur district where the bypoll was held, recorded 72.54 per cent voter turnout.
According to EC officials, the number may go up after all the voters waiting in queues cast their votes.
The election process, held amidst tight security arrangements, was primarily incident-free except for electronic voting machine (EVM) breakdowns reported in some booths of Wayanad and Chelakkara.
The EVM breakdowns were reportedly quickly addressed by the election officials.
Emotional scenes were witnessed at the polling stations set up for the survivors of the landslides, which hit the hill district in July this year, to cast their votes in the bypoll for the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency when they saw their neighbours and close friends after a long time since the disaster.
A special free vehicle service has been provided for landslide survivors to reach the polling stations from the various places they are temporarily residing at.
People arrived early in the morning at the 1,354 polling booths in the hill constituency of Wayanad where there are over 14 lakh registered voters, according to the EC figures.
It was a holiday in Wayanad LS and Chelakkara assembly constituencies on account of the bypolls.
The Wayanad constituency comprises seven assembly segments of Mananthavady (ST), Sulthan Bathery (ST), and Kalpetta in Wayanad district; Thiruvambady in Kozhikode district; and Eranad, Nilambur, and Wandoor in Malappuram district.
A bypoll was necessitated in the hill constituency after Rahul Gandhi, who won the Wayanad LS seat in the general elections held earlier this year, vacated it after he also won from the Rae Bareli constituency.
There are 16 candidates in the fray for the seat with Congress-led UDF's candidate and Rahul's sister Priyanka, who is making her electoral debut, CPI(M)-led LDF's Sathyan Mokeri and BJP-led NDA's Navya Haridas being the top contenders.
Polling in Wayanad continued amidst tight security arrangements which included deployment of over 2,500 security personnel and live monitoring of the by-election process by an extensive webcasting system.
Voting for the Chelakkara assembly seat in Thrissur district of the state also saw people turning up early at the 177 polling stations in the constituency.
There are six candidates in the fray for the assembly seat, where a bypoll was necessitated after LDF's K Radhakrishnan -- who won from there in 2021 -- was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Alathur constituency by defeating UDF's Ramya Haridas who had won from there in 2019.
Haridas is now contesting from the Chelakkara assembly seat and is pitted against LDF's U R Pradeep and NDA's K Balakrishnan.
There were close to two lakh voters in the constituency during the 2021 assembly election in the state.
Voting began in Wayanad and Chelakkara after a mock poll was carried out by casting votes in favour of all candidates, including NOTA, whose names are there on an EVM. PTI