"There are apprehensions…”, Mamata Banerjee questions delay in ECI releasing the final poll figures with a discrepancy of over 5%

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday raised apprehensions over the neutrality of the poll panel after Election Commission of India (ECI) finally released the voter turn out figures on Wednesday, 11 days since the first phase on April 19 and five days since the second phase on April 26. “How did it take so long”, asked the chief minister during a public meeting at Farakka in Murshidabad and further questioned the discrepancy of over five percent between the last data released on the polling day and the final turnout issued by ECI. According to the EC, a voter turnout of 66.14 per cent was recorded in the first and 66.71 per cent in the second phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.

“The EC gave a figure of polling percentage immediately after the elections on the polling day. But yesterday at around 9.30pm at night, I learnt about the sudden jump in final voter turnout by nearly 5.75 per cent, which is worrying. The percentage has increased in places where voting was not in favour of BJP”, Mamata Banerjee said and also highlighted that there has been several EVM machines that had gone missing in the past.

“Who manufactures these EVMs and their chips and the poll panel must answer what took so long. There are apprehensions if there has been manipulations. There were 19 lakh EVM machines missing for a long period. We will tell the Election Commission, remove the suspicion of the people. There is no point in becoming the BJP Commission. India wants an independent Election Commission," she added.

Unlike previous elections, the ECI this time has released the data of the voter turnout alone and not the break up of number of voters in figure. TMC MP Saket Gokhale has filed a RTI on Wednesday seeking detailed breakup of number of electors, number of voters and the turnout in percentage. “There is something mysterious going on with election numbers”, Saket Gokhale, the Rajya Sabha MP posted on social media along with the RTI copy.

In Bengal, for example, according to ECI final figures the Phase one has recorded 81.91 per cent and 76.58 per cent in Phase two. But the figures the ECI had shared immediately after the polling were 77.6 per cent for Phase One on April 19 and 71.8 per cent for Phase two on April 26. Generally the figures do change from the one that is shared immediately after the polling ends and the final turn out figure that comes, generally, latest by the following day. The final figure generally accounts of the voters who manage to cast their votes even after the stipulated voting time, considering people already on the queue are considered the opportunity while fresh people are barred from joining the polling queue post the stipulated time. Opposition had been questioning the delay in ECI releasing the final figures since the two phases had gotten over.