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| Ready for talks on publishing polling booth-wise voter data on website: EC to SC | | | Agencies
NEW DELHI, Mar 18: The Supreme Court on Tuesday considered the Election Commission of India's stand to deliberate on the demand for uploading polling booth-wise voter turnout data on its website and asked the petitioners to make representations before the poll panel in 10 days. A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K V Viswanathan was hearing two PILs filed by TMC MP Mahua Moitra and NGO Association for Democratic Reforms in 2019, respectively. The PILs sought a direction to the poll panel to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of conclusion of polling in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the poll panel, said Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar wanted to meet and discuss the grievance.
"Here is a new chief election commissioner now. The petitioners can meet him and it may be addressed," he said.
The CJI then said, "In the meanwhile, the counsel for Election Commission states that the petitioners (the NGO and the MP) may file a representation with the Election Commission and the EC will give them a hearing and inform them in advance. Let the representation be made in 10 days."
During the hearing, advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, said there were huge discrepancies on the EVM count and the number of persons coming to cast vote at the polling stations.
"How did at the end of the day polling of 10 become 50 next morning needs to be explained. There is a discrepancy in the final list published and the ones who visit the polling station," argued senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Moitra.
The court adjourned the hearing in the July 28 week.
On May 17, the top court sought within a week the Election Commission's response on the NGO's plea.
In its affidavit, the poll panel opposed the NGO's demand contending it will "vitiate" the electoral space and cause "chaos" in the poll machinery in the midst of the general elections.
The ADR filed an interim application in its 2019 PIL seeking directions to the poll panel that "scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part-I (Account of Votes Recorded)" of all polling stations be uploaded immediately after the polls.
"Direct the Election Commission to provide tabulated polling station-wise data in absolute figures of the number of votes polled as recorded in Form 17C Part- I after each phase of polling in the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections and also a tabulation of constituency-wise figures of voter turnout in absolute numbers in the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections," the NGO had said.
The plea claimed that the voter turnout data for the first two phases of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections published by ECI on April 30 was published 11 days after the first phase of polling on April 19 and four days after second phase of polling on April 26.
"The data, as published by the ECI in its press release dated April 30, 2024 shows a sharp increase (by about 5-6 per cent) as compared to the initial percentages announced by ECI as of 7 pm on the day of polling," it added.
The petition said the "inordinate" delay in the release of the final voter turnout data, coupled with the unusually high revision of over five per cent in the poll panel's press note of April 30, 2024 raised concerns and public suspicion regarding the correctness of the data.
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