On Monday Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to the leaders of INDIA bloc allies about raising questions over the “delay” in releasing voter turnout figures for the first two phases of Lok Sabha elections. And now after Four days of the Congress party president making allegations, the election commission has rebuttal. The central agency on Friday said, that it strongly denies his charges, adding that such “utterances” can have a “a negative impact on voter participation’, and advised him to “exercise caution”.
Terming Kharge’s allegations as “blatant inaccuracies”, the EC said there had been “no unusual delay than what is required to collect data from a large number of polling stations”. “The very premise that voter turnout data was released late is devoid of facts as it has always been available on the Voter Turnout app… Needless to add that polling station-wise data of electors and voters is given to agent of the candidate on the day of poll itself at close of poll,” the EC said. It said the records showed that no Congress candidate had raised concerns at the close of polling.
Basically in a detailed accusation Kharge wrote in his letter that the EC releasing turnout figures for phase 1 and phase 2 after 11 days and four days respectively creates a suspicion as the turnout figures seems to dramatically increase by 5.5 percentage points and 5.74 percentage points in the 1st and 2nd phase respectively. Which is different from the estimation.
Responding to the accusations the EC brought this to notice that political parties are aware of process and methods involved in the preparations of the electoral roll and know the details of the number of electors in each constituency, the number of polling station-wise electors is available with every candidate; and there is no scope of deviation from the number of voters recorded in Form 17C. Also, a signed copy of the form is sent to each contesting candidate at the end of the poll.
Adding further in it’s justification the EC said the votes at a particular EVM is tallied with the number in form 17C.
What is Form 17C?
Form 17C statutorily records turnout at every polling station in absolute numbers at the end of polling. Which is later shared by presiding officers with all polling agents of the candidates present to ensure transparency.
Mallikarjun Kharge’s reaction to EC’s Rebuttal
The Congress president on Saturday in his response to the EC’s rebuttal, expressed surprise that the poll body chose to reply to a letter meant for and addressed to INDIA partners while ignoring complaints made directly to it.
He also drew attention to the matter that there have many a times that BJP’s castiest statements and communal responses were overlooked by the central agency.
