The Election Commission (ECI) has dismissed the Congress’ allegations of discrepancies in voter data in the Haryana Assembly Elections 2024, claiming it is not possible to change the actual polling figures and the commission has provided all the information to contenders.
The Commission clarified that all details related to voting are recorded in the statutory Form 17-C, which is made available to the authorised agents of the candidates at the time of close of polling.
“The Commission is not legally bound to publish the total polling figures at the level of any constituency, state or election phase as the record of voting is recorded in Form 17-C at each polling station. This form is prepared by the Presiding Officer and signed by the polling agents of the candidates. The Presiding Officer provides a ‘True Copy of the Count of Votes’ recorded in Form 17-C (Part-1) to each polling agent,” the Election Commission said in a statement.
The committee constituted under the chairmanship of Congress leader Karan Dalal while probing the alleged rigging and irregularities in Haryana Elections 2024 had alleged “massive disparity” in the figures of votes polled and votes counted.
In this context, the Commission said that “the figures and trends appearing on the Voter Turnout App were being used, either deliberately or due to misunderstanding, to cast doubts on the credibility of statutory electoral processes.”
The Election Commission also admitted that there could be discrepancies in the figures of votes counted and votes cast citing some points including that the EC not counting the control unit of a polling station in a situation when the margin of victory is more than the votes polled at that polling station Inclusion of mock poll data in the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) (if not removed).
Also the test vote data not removed from the EVM count and the errors in incorrect reporting and entry of data, could also led to the discrepancies in the figures of votes counted and cast vote. Reacting to the allegations of lack of transparency the EC stressed that the transparency is ensured at every stage of the statutory process and voting and appropriate steps are taken to avoid any misunderstanding.
The EC’s reaction came after the Congress Fact-Finding Committee headed by former minister Karan Dalal in its interim report on the BJP’s victory and Congress’ unexpected defeat in the Haryana Assembly elections blaming the BJP, EVM and the Election Commission (EC) for the electoral rigging.
The committee alleged that the BJP influenced the election results in the state by manipulating EVMs in at least 27 urban assembly constituencies.
