NGOs seek probe in discrepancies in LS poll results

NGOs, Association for Democratic Reforms and Common Cause have approached the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission to conduct actual and accurate reconciliation of data before the declaration of the final result of any election, alleging serious discrepancies in voter turnout and votes counted in the 17 th Lok Sabha polls.

The PIL sought to highlight “dereliction of duty” on part of the Election Commission in declaring election results of the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies through Electronic Voting Machine (EVMs) based on accurate and indisputable data, put in public domain.

The joint petition filed by advocate Prashant Bhushan on behalf of the NGOs sought a direction to the poll panel to investigate the discrepancies in the Lok Sabha election results, announced on May 23, 2019 and formulate a robust procedure for all future elections for the investigation of all discrepancies in election data.

The petitioners claimed the EC introduced for the first time, in the Lok Sabha General Elections 2019, a real-time reporting of the voter turnout for every single constituency. The reporting was done on the basis of actual voting at booth level which was put up on a mobile app called the “My Voter turnout App”.

The data of actual voting on real time basis was published for the first six phases of election in actual numbers of votes polled at every booth in any constituency. However, in the last phase i.e. the 7th phase of voting only percentage figures were given and previous data was removed, the petition claimed.

“The discontinuation of publication of actual numbers of votes polled at any booth/constituency and replacing it with a percentage figure abruptly in the seventh phase of the election was seemingly done, to cover up the large number of unexplained discrepancies being recorded in majority of the Constituencies,” their plea contended.

Even though the petitioners maintained they were not questioning final result of 2019 General Elections or the election process, they sought intervention from the court for “effectuating free and fair elections, survival of democracy and for the enforcement of fundamental rights”.