A discrepancy of nearly 5 crores votes between the initial votes counted and the final votes counted,” Pawan Khera said in a post on X.
“The report claims that a minimum of 79 seats in 15 states could have been won by the NDA/BJP through the hike in the votes, implying that if true, the INDIA alliance would have the maximum seats in the parliament,” the post further added.
He urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to address the report and provide clarification, asserting that if the report’s findings are true, it would mark a significant turning point in the political history of Indian democracy.
What does the report say
The 226-page report accuses the ECI of being “unbefitting of a Constitutional authority” and alleges that the poll body has hit an “unprecedented low for the Institution.” The report said that the data of the seven phase poll was provided in a skeletal way and that the data of the phase 2 was never provided.
The report claims that there were signs of voting manipulation and potential rigging in the Lok Sabha 2024 elections. It alleged that the election process was not free and fair, with the Election Commission of India (ECI) often acting as a passive observer or collaborator.
“The poll body has evidently conducted the Lok Sabha election 2024 in a biased and partial manner to favour the ruling dispensation,” the report said.
“We are constrained to record that the conduct and attitude of the ECI is unbefitting of a Constitutional authority and its vague responses on issues of checks and balances (access to and checking of microprocessors etc), concealment of data (to date no data is available for Phase 2 of the elections held on April 26) represents an unprecedented low for the Institution,” it said.
The report alleged that the ECI did not hold any press conferences, and ‘willfully’ ignored the conduct of the star campaigners of the “ruling party”, alleging that the poll body failed to act on the violations of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951.
“Through the long drawn out election process, a 7-Phase poll that was stretched out through an incredibly hot summer, the ECI did not hold any press conferences where media could question allegations of irregularities, willfully ignored the rather blatant conduct of star campaigners of the ruling party in breaching, with impunity when sections of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951 that define “hate driven divisive speech that hark to religious identity” as a “corrupt practice were violated,” it said.
Vote for Democracy (VFD), ) is a Maharashtra-level citizens’ platform, founded in 2023.
