The Election Commission on Saturday came out with Lok Sabha constituency-wise data on the number of votes cast in the first five phases of the elections and asserted that there is a pattern in creating false narratives and mischievous design to vitiate the electoral process. It said that any alteration in the number of votes polled is not possible.
The statement comes a day after the Supreme Court adjourned petitions seeking release of booth-wise numbers of voter turnout and copies of Form 17C (which reflects the votes polled in each polling station) on the ECI’s website within 48 hours of polling, saying it cannot do so in the midst of elections.
“The Commission feels duly strengthened by the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s observations and verdict on the process of release of turnout data by the Election Commission of India. This brings upon the Commission, a higher responsibility to serve the cause of electoral democracy with undeterred resolution,” the poll panel said, adding that the “process of collection and storage of votes polled is rigorous, transparent and participative.”
The EC said it has decided to further expand the format of turnout data to include the absolute number of voters in every Parliamentary constituency. The EC refuted allegations about delay in the release of voter turnout data, saying it was always available 24X7 on the Voter Turnout App. “It publishes estimated voter turnout on two hourly basis till 1730 hrs. After 1900 hours when the polling parties start arriving, data is continuously updated. By midnight on the poll day, the Voter turnout app will show best estimated “Close of Poll (COP)” data in percentage form.”
Data shared by EC’s showed Lakshadweep had the highest voting percentage with 84.16 per cent followed by Jalpaiguri (83.66), Arunachal East (83.31), Coochbehar (82.16), Tripura West (81.48) in the first phase and the lowest voted was Nawada with 43.17 per cent followed by Almora (48.74), Karauli Dholpur (49.59), Aurangabad (50.35), and Jamui with 51.25 per cent. In the second phase the highest voting percentage stood with the Outer Manipur at 85.11 per cent followed by Nagaon (84.97), Darrang Udalguri (82.01), Mandya (81.67) , Karimganj (80.48) and the lowest in the second phase was with Mathura (49.41), followed by Rewa (49.43), Ghaziabad (49.88), Bhagalpur (53.50) and Bangalore South at 53.17 per cent.
Dhubri with 92.08 per cent turned out to be the highest in the third phase followed by Barpeta (85.24), Kokrajhar (83.55), Murshidabad (81.52), Surguja (79.89) and Raigarh (78.85) and the lowest was Amreli (50.29), Porbandar (51.83), Bhavnagar (53.92) and Badaun with 54.35 per cent.
In the fourth phase at the highest number of votes was Ongole with 87.06 per cent followed by Chittoor (85.77), Narasaraopet (85.65), Bapatla (85.48), Hindupur with 84.70 per cent and Hyderabad was the lowest with 48.48 per cent followed by Secunderabad (49.04), Malkajgiri (50.78), Kanpur (53.05) and Shahjahanpur with 53.36 per cent. In the fifth phase at the highest number of votes was Arambagh with 82.64 per cent followed by Bangaon (81.04), Hooghly (81.38), Bargarh (79.78), Uluberia (79.78) and in the lowest stood South Mumbai with 50.06 per cent followed by Kalyan (50.12), Gonda (51.62), Mumbai North Central (51.98) and Thane at 52.09 per cent.
The absolute numbers are discernable parliamentary constituency-wise by all citizens by applying the turnout percentage to total electors, both already made available in the public domain, the poll panel said.
Electors are those who are part of the electoral roll and eligible to voters. Voters are those who actually cast their vote in an election. While EC had been issuing turnout percentage, there had been demands to make the actual number of voters in every phase public.
