A Congress delegation raised concerns with the Election Commission on Tuesday over alleged anomalies in updation of electoral rolls and post-poll surge in electoral turnout in Maharashtra elections, even as EC responded with a point-by-point clarification to allay any such doubts.
The Congress delegation, comprising Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Singhvi and Maharashtra Congress unit chief Nana Patole, called for transparency to quell all doubts and sought raw data at the booth and constituency level from the EC to ascertain facts. The key points of concern raised by the Congress were large-scale additions and deletions of voters, “unusual” gap in voter turnout between end of polling hours at 5 pm and end of polling day as also final turnout and the growth in votes cast as compared to Lok Sabha poll across 118 constituencies, of which 102 saw victory of the Mahayuti candidate.
EC, which had countered the Congress’s allegations regarding rolls and turnout surge in a letter only three days back, spent almost one-and-half hours with the Congress delegation on Tuesday, allaying and countering each of their doubts/allegations with “relevant facts and figures,” a source told SRK Nation. EC will also be sending a detailed, point-by-point, written clarification to the Congress, said the source.
After the meeting Singhvi said the Congress delegation brought to the notice of the commission how lakhs of voters were deleted from the voter lists in Maharashtra. He also claimed 47 lakh additions were made since the Lok Sabha poll, even though EC put this figure at 39 lakh. Congress, he said, demanded details of door-to-door surveys and raw data to reach conclusions on any inconsistencies.
Keen to allay all doubts face-to-face, EC made it a point to explain that the additions to voter’s list were commensurate with the normal population growth of 2%, with a large component being new electors in the 18-19 years age group. On claims of “unusually high deletions”, CEC Rajiv Kumar is said to have clarified that there were no more than 2000-3000 deletions on an average in most assembly constituencies, many of which were on account of dead voters. The Congress delegation was also reminded that the draft electoral roll was available for scrutiny by all the parties before the polls. “Why were these objections not raised then?” the delegation was asked and nudged to do so in Delhi where the roll is being updated ahead of polls early next year.
On the surge in voter turnout, EC reiterated that voter turnout figures are not available in real time as EVMs have no external connectivity. The gap in turnout is on account of procedural formalities as presiding officers must attend to statutory duty near close of poll at 5 pm before updating voter turnout data on the EC app. In fact, EC now releases updated voter turnout figures at 11.45 pm on polling day, which is also not final.
To highlight the transparency in Maharashtra poll process, the EC is said to have pointed out to Patole how he, despite trailing based on EVM count, had won by 208 votes in Sakoli due to postal ballot count. A similar trend was seen in Nanded parliamentary election, where the Congress candidate won by 1,457 votes. This would not been the case had the process been flawed and non-transparent, EC is said to have told Patole.
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