Free beer, taxi rides and amusement park tickets: they go to great lengths to attract voters to the polls

To boost voter turnout in a southern Indian city, local traders are pulling out all the stops. From free taxi rides to amusement park tickets.

The world’s largest democratic election is underway in India. More than ten percent of the world’s population is allowed to vote for 44 days. But not all Indians who are allowed to do so actually do so.

The city of Bengaluru in the southern state of Karnataka has often made the news in recent years with a noticeably low turnout at polling stations. The city’s residents will be allowed to cast their votes on Friday and local authorities have now allowed local bodies to do everything they can to attract enough voters to the polls.

For example, a hotel association will offer voters free coffee, food and juice, while a popular amusement park ‘Wonderla’ will offer voters a discount on entrance tickets. There would also be free health check-ups. A café in the city gives free beer to the first fifty voters who show up and a restaurant gives a 30 percent discount to the first 100 voters. Blu-Smart, an app that makes it possible to share car rides, offers a fifty percent discount to people who travel within a radius of 30 kilometers from polling stations and taxi company Rapido offers free rides to older voters and voters with disabilities.

The elections in India will last a total of 44 days and the results are expected on June 4.