Senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath on Wednesday raised question marks over the “huge difference” between the real-time voter turnout data of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections and the final figures released by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
“There has been an increase of 1.07 crore votes in the real-time voting and the revised voting figures released later by the Election Commission in the ongoing elections for Lok Sabha. Such a huge increase in votes in real time and revised figures is unprecedented and surprising,” the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister wrote in a post on X in Hindi.
He also requested the ECI to make things clear immediately.
“The election process should be free and fair as well as transparent. In the absence of transparency, sometimes even the right process appears wrong. The Election Commission should come forward to clear all the confusion and doubts and should explain how there was such a huge difference in the voting figures and what is the reason for this?” he said.
Opposition parties have been questioning the apex poll body for the delay in releasing the voter turnout data in the ongoing polls and the alleged discrepancy in the figures.
Earlier, Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien had questioned the increase of 5.75 per cent in the final voter turnout figures for the second phase, as compared to the real time figures released by the ECI four days ago.
Political activist Yogendra Yadav said that it is “unusual and worrying”.
In a post in X, he had wrote, “I have watched and studied Indian elections for 35 years now. While a difference of 3 to 5 % points between initial (polling day evening) and final turnout figures was not abnormal, we used to get the final data within 24 hours.”
“What is unusual and worrying this time is a) delay of 11 days (for phase 1 and 4 days for phase 2) in publishing the final figures, and b) non-disclosure of the actual number of electorate and votes polled for each constituency and its segments. Percentages do not help in electoral audit,” he added.