60.5% polling in Chennai, Tamil Nadu's lowest

In December 2015, after the flood ravaged Chennai, political scientists predicted that the turnout in the assembly election would be a befitting reply by the masses. They chose silence.
With a turnout of 60.47 per cent, Chennai district was the lowest in the state that registered an average turnout of 73.85 per cent. Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's home constituency R K Nagar saw the highest number of voters with 67 per cent exercising their franchise within the city, while Harbour was the poorest at 55.2 per cent, also the lowest in the state.
The biggest surprise for political parties and analysts was the low voter turnout in Saidapet, which was the worst affected by the flood.The constituency which had the third highest voter turnout among the 16 constituencies in the 2011 election, this time stood at sixth from the bottom.
Senior journalist R Mani said the poor turnout in Saidapet was completely unexpected. "Chennai has traditionally seen lesser number of voters compared to other districts, a trend that is seen in most cities in the country. But this time we thought we would see more people coming forward to vote to vent their anger over the state's management of the flood," he said. "It could mean only one thing: people are disillusioned with the ruling party, they have no faith in an alternate," he added.
Chief electoral officer Rajesh Lakhoni said the Election Commission would undertake a study to analyse the polling percentage. At a press briefing on Monday night, he said while the absolute number of voters on the rolls had increased, polling percentage remained more or less similar to that of the 2014 parliamentary election.
While constituencies in north Chennai recorded the largest voter turnout, the percentage in south Chennai was lower. Political analysts say this trend had been the same in the past. Former chief election commissioner T S Krishnamurthy said this could be because of the large presence of party loyalists in constituencies in the north. "A lot of money is also pumped into sensitive constituencies like R K Nagar, swaying voter turnout," he said.
The low voter turnout in the posher south Chennai, analysts say, could be attributed to indifference and the fact that many are away on vacation. "However, this isn't just unique to these areas. It is one of the reasons why the overall turnout in Chennai is usually low. The city has a huge migrant population, and summer is the time when they head to their native places," said political analyst Gnani Sankaran.
Several voters were also turned away because their names were missing from the voter lists or they had left of their own volition as they were forced to shuttle between different polling booths. S Krishnan, a resident of CIT Nagar was among those who were frustrated into giving up their right to vote. "They kept referring me to different polling booths and I ended waiting in a queue for more than three hours. In the end, I just gave up," he said.