NEW DELHI: The overall turnout in the J&K Assembly election, spanning all three phases, was 63.8%, surpassing the 58.6% voter turnout recorded in the Union Territory during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. However, it was lower than the approximately 65.4% polling recorded in the 2014 assembly polls, excluding the four assembly seats that were then part of Ladakh, which is now a separate Union territory.
The final turnout for Phase 3, based on EVM votes, was nearly 69.7%, showing only a slight rise over the figure put out by the Election Commission at 11.45 pm on Tuesday.Sources said this is due to a conscious effort by the EC to have district election officers update the voting turnout figures in its app, by the end of the polling day. With no repolls necessitated after scrutiny on Wednesday, the final polling percentage for phase 3 shows only a marginal rise.
Among the three phases, phase 3 recorded the highest turnout, as compared to 61.4% in phase 1 and 57.3% in phase 2.
A look at districtwise turnouts reveals that all 10 districts in the Jammu region witnessed higher polling than the 10 districts of Kashmir division. The highest polling percentage, 80.2%, was recorded in Kishtwar district of Jammu division, while Srinagar in Kashmir clocked the lowest turnout of 30.1%. The polling in Srinagar, however, was higher than that in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and 2014 assembly elections.
In the Jammu region, after Kishtwar, Samba recorded the highest polling at 76.5%, followed by Udhampur and Reasi at 76.1% and 74.7% respectively. The lowest-turnout district in this region was Ramban, where 70.6% of the electorate turned out to vote.
The highest polling district in Kashmir division, Bandipore, recorded 67.6% turnout, which incidentally was lower than what the least-turnout district in Jammu recorded. Kupwara polled 66.8% votes, followed by Budgam and Kulgam at 63.3% and 63.1% respectively. The terror-prone districts of Anantnag, Shopian, Pulwama and Srinagar recorded turnouts that were all less than 60%, with Srinagar stopping at barely 30.1%.
Of the nearly 58,700 registered Kashmir migrant voters – for whom special polling stations were set up in Delhi, Udhampur and Jammu – only 21,395, or 36.4%, cast their vote in these assembly elections.