The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has claimed regarding the Lok Sabha elections 2024 that there is a difference in the number of votes cast and counted in 538 parliamentary constituencies. According to ADR’s analysis, 5,54,598 votes were counted less than the total votes polled in 362 parliamentary constituencies in the recent Lok Sabha elections. There are 176 parliamentary constituencies where 35,093 more votes were counted than the total votes cast. There has been no response from the Election Commission on this matter yet.
Addressing a press conference on Monday, ADR founder Jagdeep Chokkar said, ‘There is inordinate delay in releasing the final polling data, non-availability of voting data at different constituencies and polling stations and whether the election results have been finalized. The ambiguity over whether the results were declared on the basis of data raises concerns and doubts about the authenticity of the election results. However, ADR did not say how many seats this difference in votes led to different results.
Election Commission failed to give proper explanation: ADR
The ADR report said the Election Commission has so far failed to provide any proper explanation as to why it declared the election results before releasing the final and authentic data on vote counting. Votes cast in EVMs, discrepancies in their counting, increase in the final voting percentage a few days after the completion of elections, non-disclosure of booth wise number of votes cast, undue delay in releasing data of votes cast and some other issues from its website. There has been no clarification from the Election Commission even on the deletion of data.
Jagdeep Chokkar, Founder, ADR, said, ‘The Election Commission has failed to take appropriate steps to prevent the multiple violations, illegalities and irregularities observed in the Lok Sabha elections 2019 from being repeated in the Lok Sabha elections 2024. This has created doubt in the minds of voters. These apprehensions should be taken seriously and efforts should be made to resolve them.
Difference found in votes cast and counted in 538 seats
The Association for Democratic Reforms report said that while announcing the results of General Elections 2024, votes cast and counted showed significant discrepancies in 538 parliamentary constituencies except Amreli, Attingal, Lakshadweep and Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman Diu. . There was no contest on Surat parliamentary seat, because the BJP candidate had won unopposed from here. In this way, there is a difference of 589691 votes cast and counted in 538 parliamentary seats.
There is no discrepancy in the first 6 phases of Lok Sabha elections.
Independent journalist Poonam Aggarwal also addressed the press conference. He said that while analyzing the data of votes cast and votes counted, I got exactly the same result. He said, ‘For the first 6 phases of Lok Sabha elections, the Voter Turnout App of ECI displayed the accurate number of voters. However, in the last i.e. 7th phase, the figures of votes cast on this app were given only in percentage and the previous data was removed.
In 2019, there was a difference of 739104 votes between votes cast and counted.
According to the research conducted by the team of experts and ADR regarding the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, ‘in the analysis of 542 constituencies, discrepancies were seen in 347 seats. There was no discrepancy on 195 seats. These discrepancies ranged from 1 vote (lowest) to 101323 votes (highest) i.e. 10.49 percent of the total votes cast. There were 6 seats where the difference between votes cast and counted was more than the victory margin. Overall, there was a difference of 739104 votes cast and counted.