EC Releases Final Voter Data Amid Controversy Over Missing Polling Details
New Delhi: Three days after the fifth phase of voting, the Election Commission (EC) on Thursday released the final voter data, which showed 62.2 per cent polling was recorded in 49 parliamentary constituencies in the ongoing general election. The EC said that polling figures will be further updated after repolling at two polling stations in Odisha's Kandhamal is completed on Thursday. The dispute over missing polling station-wise voter turnout data on the EC's website, however, continues unabated.
In a press statement, the EC said that among the states that went to the polls last Monday, West Bengal recorded the highest voter turnout of 78.45 per cent followed by Odisha (73.5 per cent) and Ladakh (71.82 per cent). Voter turnout in Bihar (56.76 per cent) was the lowest, followed by Maharashtra (56.89 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (58.02 per cent), Jammu and Kashmir (59.1 per cent) and Jharkhand (63.21 per cent).
Overall, the female turnout (63 per cent) in the fifth phase was higher than that of men (61.48 per cent).
Reacting to the Election Commission's Wednesday affidavit in the Supreme Court that "indiscriminate disclosure" of polling station-wise turnout data will cause chaos in the election machinery, Rajya Sabha MP Mr Kapil Sibal on Thursday said that the absence of the data on the EC's website has given rise to doubts among political parties that there is "something fishy".
Questioning the polling data, Mr Sibal asked what the problem is in putting out polling station-wise turnout data when all the details in Form 17C are given to the polling agent at the end of voting.
Mr Sibal's remarks came a day after the poll body filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in response to a plea of an NGO seeking a direction to the poll panel to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of the conclusion of polling for each phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
The EC said public posting of Form 17C, which gives the number of votes polled in a polling station, was not provided in the statutory framework and could lead to mischief and vitiation of the entire electoral space as it increased the possibility of the images being morphed.
Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Mr Sibal said the Election Commission filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that it had no legal mandate to upload Form 17C, which is a record of the votes polled at a polling station.
"Form 17C is signed by a presiding officer and given to the polling agent at the end of the poll, which indicates the number of votes polled. The information is also directly sent to the Election Commission. Now why does the EC not put that data on the website? What's the problem? Just like the EC, at the time of counting, puts the final count on its website to indicate who has won (it should put this out also),” Mr Sibal said.
"What can happen in the process is that the number of votes that are counted will in fact be greater than the number of votes that are polled. We don't know whether that is correct or not. What is the hesitation of the EC in putting that data on its website? Nobody can morph it. That will be tallied with the data of the polling agent," the Rajya Sabha MP said.
The poll authority not doing so is resulting in parties having doubts that "there is something fishy", Mr Sibal said.
The Election Commission has dismissed as false and misleading the allegation that the first two phases of the elections witnessed an increase of "5-6 per cent" in the voter turnout data released on the day of polling and in the subsequent press releases for each of the two rounds.
