Orissa High Court
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Bhubaneswar: The BJD said that it would approach the Orissa High Court regarding "discrepancies" during the 2024 assembly and Lok Sabha polls, as the EC has "failed" to give any satisfactory reply to the regional outfit on the issue.
BJD spokesperson Amar Patnaik, MLA Dhruba Charan Sahoo and former MP Sarmistha Sethi made the announcement at a press conference here on Monday.
"Around eight months ago, BJD had submitted fact-based evidence to the Election Commission of India (ECI) regarding the vote discrepancy observed during last elections and sought a reply, but a satisfactory reply has not been received yet. Therefore, the Biju Janata Dal has decided to approach the High Court regarding this matter," Patnaik told reporters here.
"Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has recently raised questions about the transparency of the elections, following which the party's state unit is also raising the issue now. However, the BJD had flagged this long before that. Gandhi also sought the audit system demanded by the BJD earlier," Patnaik said.
Alleging that the ECI has not been able to remove the doubts from the minds of the people on the transparency and election results, Patnaik said, "That is why the Biju Janata Dal is moving the High Court." He, however, made it clear that the BJD's move has nothing to do with the Congress allegation of 'vote chori' (theft of votes).
The BJD spokesperson said that after studying the data provided by the ECI after the end of the last elections, many discrepancies were observed.
As a responsible political party, the BJD sought clarification from the ECI regarding this discrepancy, he said.
"We had raised three points – First, in all parliamentary constituencies of the state, the number of votes counted was more than the number of votes cast in the EVMs. Secondly, there was a significant difference between the total number of votes cast in the parliamentary constituencies and the total number of votes cast in the assembly constituencies. The polling was held simultaneously," Patnaik said.
Thirdly, that after the end of the election time at 5 pm on voting days, the number of votes cast in the Lok Sabha and assembly polls varied from about 7 to 30 per cent. In fifty per cent of the assembly seats, this difference ranged from 15 to 30 per cent, the BJD spokesperson claimed.
He said the BJD, on December 19, 2024, lodged a complaint with the ECI in this regard, and a response was requested. Apart from this, in order to make the election process more transparent, an audit of the entire process, starting from the preparation of the voter list to the completion of the counting of votes, was also demanded.
"Such an audit system of the election process is available in all developed countries. Similarly, it was requested that the VVPAT system be implemented for all votes," he said.