Discrepancy in Number Of Votes Polled And Votes Counted In 538 Constituencies In LS Polls: ADR

New Delhi: Poll rights body Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has claimed that there is a discrepancy in the number of votes polled and the number of votes counted in 538 constituencies in the Lok Sabha election.

According to an analysis by the ADR released in a press conference on Monday, in the recent Lok Sabha polls a total of 5,54,598 votes counted are less than the votes polled in 362 parliamentary constituencies while a total of 35,093 votes have been counted in excess of the votes polled in 176 parliamentary constituencies.

A reaction from the Election Commission was awaited on the matter.

"In addition, the inordinate delay in the release of final voter turnout data, absence of disaggregated constituency and polling station figures in absolute numbers and whether the elections results were declared based on final reconciled data has raised concerns and public suspicion regarding the correctness of the election results," said ADR founder Jagdeep Chokkar while addressing a press conference.

ADR, however, did not specify that in how many seats these difference of votes would have resulted in a different outcome.

The report said the Election Commission has so far failed to give any reasonable explanation in declaring the election results before releasing the final and authentic data on vote count, the mismatch in EVM votes polled EVM votes counted, increase in voter turn-out, non-disclosure of number of votes polled in numbers, unreasonable delay in release of votes polled data and the clean-up of certain data from its website.

"The ECI failing to address and take appropriate steps against the egregious incidents of violations, illegalities and irregularities seen in the Lok Sabha, 2019 and Lok Sabha Election 2024 elections has led to the trepidations in the mind of the electorate. These apprehensions must be seriously addressed and put to rest," Chokkar said.

The report said while declaring the results of the General elections 2024 votes polled and counted showed significant discrepancies in 538 parliamentary constituencies (PCs), except Amreli, Attingal, Lakshadweep and Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman Diu.

"Surat PC was uncontested. Hence the total discrepancies in 538 PCs are 5,89,691 votes," the report said.

Independent journalist Poonam Aggarwal who also addressed the press conference said she found the exact same result while analysing the data of the votes cast and the votes polled.

During the 17th General Elections, while for the first 6 phases of the election, the voter turnout app displayed the exact number of voters, however, in the last phase i.e. the 7th phase of voting only percentage figures were given and previous data was removed by the Election Commission.

As per the research conducted by a team of experts and ADR, serious discrepancies were found between the number of voters in different constituencies and the number of votes counted.

"The master summary of 542 constituencies showed discrepancies in 347 seats. 195 seats were without discrepancies whatsoever. The discrepancies ranged from 1 vote (lowest) to 101323 votes at 10.49 per cent of the total votes (highest).

There were 6 seats where the discrepancy in votes was higher than the winning margin. The total volume of discrepancies was in the nature of 739104 votes put together," the report said about the 2019 polls.