Congress has demanded a response from the Election Commission describing it as “shocking revelations which can shake the trust of people in our democracy.”
Waquar Hasan | Clarion India
NEW DELHI — There are clear signs that misconduct and manipulation have benefited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies on 79 seats across the country in the Lok Sabha elections held this year, a report has claimed.
‘The Report: Conduct of Lok Sabha 2024’ released by Vote for Democracy (VFD) group on 22 July demanded an independent investigation after alleging clear signs of deliberate misconduct and manipulation taken place in the Lok Sabha election 2024 as well as the biased and partial functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in taking action against political parties during the MCC (Model Code of Conduct) period.
“Most significantly, the numerical analysis of the election results and voter turnout percentage conducted by us reveals that the subsequent hike in voter turnout has arguably, disproportionately benefited the ruling regime. Notably, for all the seven phases considered together, the cumulative hike in votes from initial turnout figures is close to 5 crore votes, or 4,65,46,885 to be precise!,” noted the report.
The report has been prepared by Dolphy D’Souza,Teesta Setalvad, Dr Bharat Patankar and Satish Londhe.
The report further said: “This unprecedented vote percentage increase translated into actual votes has meant that the thus “manipulated” figures of Votes Recovered and Counted ensured that 18 more seats were arguably won by the ruling NDA (BJP) in Odisha, 11 in Maharashtra, 10 in West Bengal, 7 in Andhra Pradesh, 6 in Karnataka, 5 each in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, three each in Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, 2 in Assam and 1 each in Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Kerala. This means that a possible minimum of as many as 79 seats in 15 states could have been won by the NDA/BJP through this hike of votes!”.
Citing these findings, Congress demanded a response from the Election Commission of India describing it as “shocking revelations which can shake the trust of people in our democracy”.
“If the report is incorrect, @ECISVEEP must clarify its stance on it and restore the faltering faith of the people in the democratic process. But if what is said in the report is true, then the political history of Indian democracy is seeing its turning point,” said Pawan Khera, chairman of Media and Publicity Department of Congress.
The report said that during the intensive numerical analysis, a pattern emerges: that, between the voter turnout hike and the delay in releasing the final turnout has ultimately favoured the ruling dispensation.
The report has also closely tracked all the PCs state-wise where malpractices were reported on voting and counting day. “Resultantly, the inquiry found at least 18 PCs where malpractice took place during voting and counting day and the Returning Officer (RO) concerned failed to take appropriate action and behaved in a biased and partial manner. Voter suppression in both the PC of Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh and the RO’s misconduct in the Mumbai North-West PC, is highlighted specifically,” it said.
A notice was also served on the ECI on grounds of alleged gross illegalities/irregularities, vote manipulation and misconduct, spurious injection of votes as well as violations of MCC and Supreme Court judgements during voting and counting in the 18th Lok Sabha elections.
“In the notice before the ECI, we citizens seek explanation and answerability of the ECI on the appointment of the election commissioner in partiality, violation of People’s Act 1951, conducting election through EVMs, registration and counting manipulation in election, large scale spurious injection of votes, illogical and chaotic scheduling of election, voting misconduct and malpractices, serious violation of MCC, complaints of not providing Form 17C to polling agents, delay in releasing voter turnout, violation of statutory directions by the Returning Officers and discrepancies between votes polled and votes counted. We also in our notice placed reliance on the Supreme Court’s ADR Judgement (2024) on strengthening integrity of the election process and that has not been compiled by the ECI,” said the report.
