Spokesperson: Shri Randeep Singh Surjewala: He said you all must have seen that there is an organization called ‘Vote for Democracy’, probably a group of experts who have studied in great detail the votes counted in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, how many votes were cast in different phases, what the Election Commission announced later, and certain things have emerged out of it, which we cannot ignore.

I will draw your attention to some points in the analysis that was done and then you will see that there are about five crore such votes which came later and whenever the Election Commission was asked about this, they kept saying that Sir, the figures we gave at 7:00, 7:15, 7:30 were not completely correct initially, it was an estimate and after some time when the figures were finalized, we published them. It is another matter that they gave their final figures after 11 days in the first phase, after six days in the second phase and after four, five days in the remaining phases!

When voting starts with EVMs, no matter which booth it is, every one and a half or two hours they have to electronically send to the Election Commission the number of votes cast at that booth till that time. If around 60-65 percent votes are cast and there is a difference of 4.7 percent in it, then I cannot believe that 10 percent votes were cast after 7 o’clock and then this figure increased substantially!

The electronic age is known for its accuracy and if there is a difference of 12- 15 per cent in different states, then this in itself raises questions on the election process. I would request you to look at this report, the states where BJP or its alliance should not have done well or where they did better than expected are the states where this type of manipulation has been found the most. It includes Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar and some other states. So, on behalf of the Indian National Congress, we will request the Election Commission to take this report seriously as it is a question of its own credibility. - Saturday, August 3, 2024