In a major development, the Election Commission has rubbished fake reports claiming that there was a discrepancy in the total turnout and the actual number of voters in some states. The Election Commission has therefore made it clear that there were no “ghost voters” as was being suggested by a section of the media.
A leftist portal, The Quint, for example, had claimed that its analysis had shown that the difference in votes ranged between 18,331 additional votes in Tamil Nadu’s Kanchipuram seat to 19,776 deficit votes in Tripura West. The Election Commission has released a statement which reads, “The provisional voter turnout data reported on the ECI website is only the tentative number of voters and not the final numbers. Therefore, it is an incorrect inference to find ghost voters when there are none.”
The Election Commission also made it clear that two categories of votes are counted in order to discern the final result- the votes cast in the EVMs and those that are collected through postal ballots from service voters and also those votes which are cast by poll duty personnel if they are deployed on election duty outside their constituencies.
The poll panel has also stated, “The provisional voter turnout data is displayed as percentage figure on the Election Commission of India website and Voter Helpline mobile app on the poll day as uploaded by the Returning Officer/Assistant Returning Officer based on the approximate percentage turnout figures obtained from sector magistrates, who in-turn get it periodically over phone/in person from about 10 presiding officers.”
The Commission has also made it clear that provisional figures of voter turnout during the elections is compiled and uploaded on the website of the Commission. The data is based on the polling station wise tentative turnout data reported by the presiding officers. The poll panel has made it clear that these figures are purely provisional. It said, “All these figures are provisional, based on estimates which are subject to change as is made clear from the disclaimer on the website.”
The Election Commission has done a very good job but busting the fake and vicious propaganda about the fairness of the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. It seems that a sizeable section of the political spectrum and the mainstream media is unable to fathom its disastrous defeat during the Lok Sabha polls. Therefore, they are trying to discredit the elections itself. Now, it is for the concerned authorities to go after those spreading vicious propaganda about the recently concluded polls. India is known for its democratic ethos and has been hailed as the biggest democracy of the world. Those trying to shake the very foundations of India’s democratic ethos must be dealt with sternly.