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After EC releases final voting data, two seats see dramatic shifts in turnout
New Delhi: When the state election commission released polling data around 7pm on Sunday, more than 24 hours after voting ended on Saturday, the turnout numbers
New Delhi: When the state election commission released polling data around 7pm on Sunday, more than 24 hours after voting ended on Saturday, the turnout numbers of two constituencies had seen a drastic change from the provisional figures released on polling day.
Until late Saturday night, according to the Election Commission’s Voter Turnout app, Ballimaran with 49.39% voters had recorded the third lowest voting count. On Sunday, when Delhi’s chief electoral officer (CEO) released the updated data, Ballimaran, at 71.58%, had recorded the highest turnout of all 70 assembly constituencies.
There was a similar change in Shakur Basti constituency’s trends. The voter turnout increased dramatically from 49.19%, according to the app, to 67.66%.
Earlier in the day, addressing a press conference, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh said “something is cooking” and “a game is being played secretly” while commenting on the delay in the announcement of the final voting turnout, a charge the state election commission denied.
During the day, well before the EC released the final data, state home minister Satyendar Jain alleged there were discrepancies in Shakur Basti. He had tweeted, “After compilation of form 17c for 143 booths, total 98012 out of 144777 votes [were] polled in my constituency (Shakur Basti AC 15) that works out to be 67.7% votes. Whereas the EC website is showing 49.19% polling only,” he tweeted
In the 2015 polls, the AAP won both Ballimaran and Shakur Basti seats.
Delhi CEO Ranbir Singh however refuted the allegations claiming there was “no unusual delay”.
Commenting on the difference in voting percentages in some constituencies, he said, “The difference in numbers is only because polling went on till late, and data from all polling stations could not be fed on the app and website. The scrutiny of records was done till Sunday evening, and the final numbers have come out now. It is important that the data is accurate, and we ensured the same.”
“The data from polling stations is fed by returning officers into the website and the app. However, it is not accurate till the time figures from all stations arrive,” he added.
An official working with AAP’s Ballimaran candidate Imran Hussain said QR code scanners were used in the constituency, due to which the complete data may not have been uploaded on Saturday evening.
“There is a network connection issue in many areas of Ballimaran, due to which the QR code scanners were taking time to upload the data. That may be a major reason behind the difference in voting percentage between Saturday night and Sunday evening,” he said.
The EC had, for the first time, used QR-code scanners in 11 assembly constituencies including Ballimaran and Shakur Basti.
An independent candidate from Shakur Basti, Asha Ram, however, said, “It’s suspicious. How did the polling figure go up by almost 20%? We’ll tally the final figure provided by the Election Commission with the number of voters who signed at the registers at the polling booths, as well as the number of voters recorded by each ballot box/voting machine in all the booths in Shakur Basti.”
