June 4, 2024
NEW DELHI – Chief Election Commissioner (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, said on Monday.
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, 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 of 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 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 per cent. “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 incident of violence was 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) centres, it will start first, there is no doubt about it. After only half an hour the EVM counting will start. As soon as EVM counting gets over, the counting of five (random) VVPAT will start.”
He said the same process was followed in 2019 (general elections) and it happened in all the Assembly elections in 2022 and added that it happened on Sunday also during the counting of votes in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim Assembly elections.
“The number of postal ballots is less 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 should 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 all those who are involved in the election against 540 in 2019 there were only 39 repolls in 2024. Of these 39 also, 25 are only in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. Just 14 repolls in the rest of the country. 27 states have had no repolls.”
On the lessons learned during the polls, he said elections should be completed before summer, and that be more prepared to tackle fake narratives.
Counting of votes for the general elections will begin at 8 am on Tuesday in counting centres spread across States and Union Territories. More than 8,000 candidates including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were in the fray in the general elections.
Counting of votes for the Andhra Pradesh and Odisha Assembly polls will be held simultaneously.
The Lok Sabha elections were held in seven phases between 19th April and 1st June.