Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024: Impossible to change actual voter turnout, EC assures Congress

In a detailed response to the Opposition party, the EC explained why it is wrong to compare 5 pm voter turnout data with final polling data.

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Tuesday rebutted Congress' claims of arbitrary additions or deletions of voters in Maharashtra and discrepancies in voter turnout data.

The response came following a letter submitted to the EC in November, claiming that the NDA won 47 of the 50 Assembly seats where there was an “unprecedented increase” in the number of voters by around 50,000 after an “arbitrary” deletion of names from voter’s list besides raising the issue of voter turnout.

The EC described the claim of the BJP winning 47 of 50 seats where there was an unprecedented increase in voters as "factually incorrect and misleading", as it said that only six assembly constituencies had total additions of over 50,000 electors during the period. Hence, it said, the question of the NDA winning in 47 seats on this basis does not arise.

"You will agree that such baseless accusations coming from a national party high standing creates unnecessary and avoidable doubts and anxiety in the mind of the public, even when the data is publicly available and timely shared with all parties," it said.

The watertight statutory scheme ensures that deletion and addition of voters is done strictly according to rules with fullest involvement of political parties at every stage, it said adding there were no bulk deletions or unusual deletion patterns of notice across all assembly seats.

Deletions of an average of 2,779 electors per seat happened on account of death or shifting and duplicate entries after following due process, including participation of party representatives. It also said rule-based process was followed with transparency in Maharashtra electoral roll preparation and there was no irregular pattern in voter deletions in the state.

The EC said there was an addition of 48.61 lakh voters and deletion of eight lakh voters, resulting in a net addition of 40.81 lakh, which included 8.72 lakh voters in the 18-19 age group and 17.74 lakh voters in the 20-29 age group. This would mean 26.46 lakh out of 40.81 lakh were youngsters, which is a welcome trend of participation of youth, it said adding there are four qualifying dates in a year for adding new voters.

It also said the increase in voter turnout from 5 PM to 11:45 PM was normal, being part of the process of aggregation of voter turnout.

It is impossible to change actual voter turnout as statutory Form 17C giving details of voter turnout is available with authorised agents of candidates at the time of close of poll at the polling station itself it said.