Curious case of Chhattisgarh’s swinging vote percentage

Vandana Agrawal

Raipur: As if the allegations of EVM tampering during the recent Chhattisgarh Assembly polls weren’t enough, the state Election Commission (EC) is now under attack for inconsistent voter turnout data in the state since the final phase of polling on November 20.

At loggerheads over the figures are the state EC and the Chhattisgarh government’s Directorate of Public Relations (DPR), from where the nodal officer to disseminate information about the elections is appointed.

While the state EC has declared the final cumulative polling percentage for both phases of the elections as 76.35 percent, the DPR’s website put the figure at 76.60 percent seven days after the end of voting.

Worse, in some constituencies such as Bharatpur-Sonhat (final phase), the polling percentage has wide variations according to the EC and DPR - on the day of voting it was declared to be 65.32 percent, then the EC pegged the voter turnout at 72.88 per cent, and the DPR finally put it at 84 percent.

It is the small difference of 0.25 percent in voting percentage (between 76.35 and 76.60) that has alarmed the opposition Congress, considering that in the previous 2013 election the party lost to the ruling BJP when the difference in vote percentage between the two was just 0.75 percent.

Changing numbers between EC and DPR

For Chhattisgarh’s 90 Assembly seats, polling was held in two phases. The electorate cast votes for 18 seats under the Left Wing Extremism-affected areas first on November 12, after which the EC declared the voting percentage as 60.49 percent initially after polling hours ended, and revised the figures next day to 76.28 percent.

[Embed PC info letter dated Nov 12- attached]

The remaining 72 seats went to the polls on November 20 and the polling percentage was released the same day after completion of voting. According to the data given out by the EC on November 20, the voter turnout was 66.63 percent till 6 pm. Chief Electoral Officer Subrata Sahu said polling had continued even after 6 pm and that exact data would be arrived at late at night or early the following day. 

[Embed PC info letter dated Nov 20- attached]

The next day, November 21, revised polling data was released by the state EC in the evening. According to this, the percentage of voting for 72 seats had risen to 76.35 per cent.

[Embed PC info letter dated Nov 21- attached]

The state EC mentioned in the information letter issued at the press conference that the polling parties from all 72 seats were back safely and had deposited their polling material at the collection centres. Also that the machines used in the elections had been sealed in the presence of all political parties and contestants. 

But on November 27, seven days after polling, data on voting percentage across all 90 seats was released on the website of the DPR. Here, the voter turnout was pegged at 76.60 percent. However constituency-wise data released by the EC and DPR on November 21 and November 27, respectively, had wide differences as well. While a majority of the seats were now showing higher polling percentage, some of them like Premnagar exhibited almost 2% decrease in turnout. 

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Going through the results of previous elections in Chhattisgarh, it’s apparent that a small difference in voting percentage swayed the results for many candidates.

For example, Leader of Opposition in the assembly, Congress' TS Singh Deo managed to win the 2008 election by a mere 900 votes. Raju Chhattri of BJP won by 608 votes from Takhatpur in 2013 while Mohala-Manpur’s Tejkunwar of Congress won by 956 votes. In Dongargaon, Daleshwar Sahu of Congress won by 1,698 votes while Raipur Rural witnessed the victory of Satyanarayan Sharma by 1,861 votes.

In 2013, as many as 11 candidates won or lost the election by a meager margin of just 2,000-3,000 votes.

Congress spokesperson for Chhattisgarh Shailesh Nitin Trivedi pointed out that the party had lost the 2013 election when the difference in vote percentage between the Congress and BJP was 0.75 percent.

Chief Electoral Officer Sahu defended the differing voter turnout data by saying that the figures “released earlier was provisional data. This is the final data (referring to figures released on November 21). Somewhere, polling was held in remote areas, somewhere the officials had to come via helicopters. This took time, so it’s wrong to say that the percentage was increased. Data was arrived at after matching all of the polling data.”

But Chhattisgarh convener of Association for Democratic Reforms Gautam Bandopadhyay sounded a warning, pointing to data released by the state DPR on November 27. “These are not the old days. If polling data comes after 7 days of voting, then it’s worrisome. The EC should review its works,” he said.

The trouble with mockpoll data

The matter is not just of polling percentage in Chhattisgarh. It has been found that mockpoll data from EVMs wasn’t deleted, as is the norm, and was added to the final poll data.

A mockpoll is conducted an hour prior to polling and minimum 50 votes should be cast in an EVM at one booth in the presence of polling agents. It is mandatory that actual polling be started only after the results of the mock poll have been entered into Form 17C and deleted from the EVMs.

In Chhattisgarh, plenty of mockpoll glitches came up and votes of the mockpoll were found to be undeleted and added to the final vote tally.

The state EC has even accepted the blunder and is now waiting for further directions from the Election Commission of India. Amid claims of EVM manipulation by the opposition parties, the ECI has ordered that booth-wise data of polling not be issued. 

On mockpoll votes not being deleted, Dharamlal Kaushik, state BJP president, said the “election commission will decide over the matter. If there is doubt, it needs investigation”.

Subrata Dey, state spokesperson of the Janata Congress Chhattisgarh of Ajit Jogi, said the EC “should take up the issue seriously and an investigation should be done impartially. Action should be taken so that voters’ trust on the election process remains unviolated”.