A heartening feature of Assembly elections held after the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has been voter enthusiasm as reflected in high voter turnout percentages across four states and Puducherry. The new poll rolls may have denied many their right to vote but they also seem to have generated a new zeal to vote for those who were not among the 12 per cent or so of the electorate whose names were deleted or their voting right kept under review.
Over 85 per cent of the revised electorate of Tamil Nadu came to the booths and used the EVMs while the frenzy was more in West Bengal where the democratic dream of 100 per cent voter turnout was nearly fulfilled. Various conclusions are being drawn about in whose favour the greater number of voters who turned up may have exercised their franchise. It is, perhaps, logical to conclude that a new awakening may have happened for people to come out in such numbers to choose who will lead them over the next five years.
It may be sorely tempting for some to conclude that anti-incumbency brings out the voters the most. Others like Mamata Banerjee say that they are in the driver’s seat because people responded to a threat of their right to vote being taken away. The fact is you can love the SIR for deleting the names of the deceased and the not normally resident voters or you can hate it for disenfranchising a certain section of the people because the EC acted at the behest of the powers that be, but you can hardly ignore the SIR factor in the polls.
Besides the factors impelled by the controversial and highly dissatisfactory mode of functioning of the SIR, what may have created the buzz of democracy in Tamil Nadu was the actor Vijay factor. The discernible profile of voters dominated by first timers, youth and women seemed to indicate that C. Joseph Vijay’s TVK may have been the tipping factor. It is moot whether this will win seats for the debutant politician, but it is certain that he has taken away a chunk of votes from the well-entrenched Dravidian majors. How that works out in terms of the verdict is unknown.
It is remarkable that a personality from the film world caused such havoc among the Dravidian duopoly after the state may have evolved out of its old fixation with celluloid heroes and heroines. That he did so despite the Centre and Tamil Nadu pulling out every trick in the book to deny his campaign momentum, including in throttling the release of his Rs 500 crore movie Jana Nayagan, is the remarkable story of this round of polls that stretched from Assam in the northeast to Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry in the south.
Vijay may not have had such an impact as to upset the results with a fledgling party and scatter the duopoly, but he may have done enough to make his presence felt even as the ruling party feels encouraged by the voter response. The status quo may still prevail, with both Dravidian parties equally confident about victory after studying the voting trend, but the appearance of a third force has given the scene a different feel.
The greatest irony in the last round of the 2026 poll season is that praise is being doled out for fewer incidents of violence in West Bengal than has invariably been the norm in a state which had become a byword for political violence. The record number of security forces on duty may have had something to with this in a volatile state. There too, the record turnout promises that people have come to realise the value of the power of one — the solitary vote that a person can cast periodically in a democracy.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
