66 per cent polling in third phase: Are Indians losing interest in the elections

'One person, one vote' is the dictum that has been a founding principle of the world's largest democracy, India. Elections are those festivals of democracy where once in every few years voters exercise their most basic of rights to either reward the incumbent government with another term or usher in the winds of change by electing a new establishment.

While India's elections have always been the envy of the world for their regularity and relative fairness despite the size of the electorate and the vastness of the land itself, there was a low voter turnout recorded in the third and largest phase of Lok Sabha elections 2019 covering 116 constituencies amid complaints of EVM malfunctioning in many states and killing of a man outside a booth in West Bengal.

The voting percentages in three major South Indian cities in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections are dismal, with barely half the registered electorate exercising their franchise.

An estimated 56.71 per cent of voters exercised their franchise till 5 pm in the 10 Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh amid reports EVM snags at some booths.

Considering the data emerging this election season, are Indians drastically losing faith and interest in the electoral process?