Chief Election Commission (CEC) Rajiv Kumar said here on Monday that the Election Commission of India (ECI) had made foolproof arrangements to ensure peaceful and fair counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday. He said a record number of 642 million voters exercised their franchise in the Lok Sabha polls that concluded on Saturday.
Addressing a press conference, along with Election Commissioners (ECs), Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, the CEC said, “We have created a world record with 642 million proud Indian voters casting their vote. This is a historic moment for all of us and for the nation as a whole. This is 1.5 times the number of voters in the G7 countries. It is 2.5 times that of the voters of 27 countries in the EU.”
He said that has been the incredible power of voters in India. As for the participation of women in the elections, the CEC said, “There are 312 million voters. This is also the highest ever in the world. We salute our voters, especially women voters, who have come out to vote in this election.”
He informed me that Jammu and Kashmir recorded the highest voter turnout in the last four decades in these general elections. The overall voter turnout was recorded at 58.58 percent. “We would very soon start the process of assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir,” Kumar added.
He said this was one of the general elections where no major incidents of violence were reported.
Elaborating on the arrangements made for the counting of votes, Kumar said the entire counting process is absolutely robust. The process of counting is codified. “There cannot be any systemic mistake in this process. It works like a precision clock. There may be human problems; we will deal with that,” he added. The CEC further said, “As per Rule 54A, postal ballot counting will start first. So, in all the counting centers, it will start first; there is no doubt about it. After only half an hour, the EVM counting will start. As soon as the EVM counting gets over, the counting of five (random) VVPATs will start.”
He said the same process was followed in 2019 (general elections), and it happened in all the Assembly elections in 2022. He added that it happened on Sunday, also during the counting of votes in the Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim Assembly elections. “The number of postal ballots is lower in the majority of booths. So automatically, it will finish earlier,” the CEC added. Notably, a delegation of the INDIA bloc leaders met the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday and demanded that the postal ballots be counted before announcing the results of EVMS.
On the reelections, the CEC said, “This time, we have not had many re-polls. This is an incredible story again of the meticulous work of the personnel, and for all those who were involved in the election against 540 in 2019, there were only 39 repolls in 2024. Of these 39, 25 are also in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. Just 14 repolls in the rest of the conference. 27 states have had no repolls.”
On the lessons learned during the polls, he said elections should be completed before summer and that we should be more prepared to tackle fake narratives.
EC rejects Jairam’s request: The Election Commission on Monday rejected the request of Congress leader Jairam Ramesh to give him one week’s time to file a detailed reply on his allegation against Home Minister Amit Shah, calling 150 district magistrates ahead of the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha election. The Congress leader sought the time from the EC in response to a notice issued by it on Sunday.