A day ahead of the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission (EC) on Monday stressed that the process is robust with the participation of candidates at every stage. The EC also ruled out reverting to the pre-2019 system of enumerating postal ballots as demanded by opposition parties, saying there can be no change made midcourse simply based on rumours.
“The counting process is extremely robust with the participation of candidates at every stage...there will be around 30-35 lakh polling agents who will be present at the counting tables. There will be 30-35 lakh Form 17 C out there. So the counting process will take place among 70-80 lakh people. It works with the precision of a clock," Chief Election Commission Rajiv Kumar said at the EC's post-election process conference.
On the demand made by INDIA alliance parties that the counting of postal ballots be completed before the votes in the EVMs are counted, as was the practice before 2019 when the Commission had brought in a change in the process, Kumar said the system that has been in place since 2019 cannot be changed midcourse just on the basis of rumours.
"The rule clearly says that the counting of postal ballots starts first. We will start counting postal ballots first. No doubt about it. After half an hour of the counting of postal ballots having begun, we will start counting the EVMs. This process has been followed since 2019 and was followed in the counting of votes in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim also," he said.
Kumar said that since the number of postal ballots in the majority of the booths would not be very high, they will anyway be counted before the EVM count is completed.
Referring to the other demands made by the opposition parties in their meeting with the Commission on Sunday, he said all those are anyways part of the process that is being followed by the EC for the last 70 years.
Taking exception to the doubts raised over the Commission's impartiality in these elections, he said mischievous narratives were spread about the EC and there was a pattern and a design behind it. He also said he was stopping short of saying there was a toolkit involved.
“There was a pattern in these attacks. Before election, the first case that came up was about the voter list being defective...then came the case about EVM, and this could have spread anarchy because it came at a time when there was heavy political contestation and the workers were charged. This case came up four days before Phase I, like in 2019. They could have brought it anytime between 2019 and 2024," Kumar said.
He referred to the questions raised about voter turnout and the case pertaining to that which was filed in the Supreme Court. "The allegation made was that we did not release voter turnout figures and that in the data, the number of voters had increased by one crore. There was no delay in releasing voter turnout figures," he said.
The assembly-wise and parliamentary constituency-wise figures were always available on the EC website, the CEC said. What was not available initially was the sate-wise count, he said, adding that one could have got the figure by summing up the assembly-wise and parliamentary constituency-wise figures.
"This is a fake narrative. We failed completely to understand it. We have understood it now," he said.
Kumar also took exception to the claims made by Jairam Ramesh, AICC General Secretary in charge of Communications, that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had in the run-up to counting day called up 150 district magistrates, who are the returning officers in the election.
Without naming Ramesh, Kumar said a claim was made that a large number of returning officers were being influenced. "How can this happen? Can anyone influence 600-700 people? If it has happened, we will take action before counting. People should not spread rumours and make everyone suspect," he said.
