Maharashtra elections: EC refutes vote mismatch claims as misleading, inaccurate

Mumbai: The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday dismissed reports alleging a discrepancy between the votes polled and counted in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, calling them "misleading," "inaccurate," and "bereft of facts."

The state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) clarified that the reported mismatch of over 5 lakh votes failed to account for postal ballots, accusing the report of intentionally misleading the public, said IANS. "The claim of a mismatch in votes in Assembly Constituencies (AC) 231 Ashti and AC 242 Osmanabad is both misleading and irresponsible. The difference cited in the report is actually due to valid postal ballots, which were not included in the tally of polled votes on the voter turnout app (VTA)," the CEO’s office stated.

The clarification pointed out that the press report lacked due diligence, as the voter turnout figures on the Election Commission’s official website clearly separated "EVM votes" and "counted valid postal votes" for each constituency. The report’s failure to include postal ballots led to the sensationalized claim of a vote mismatch.

The CEO further clarified that the total number of votes polled in the state’s 288 Assembly constituencies using EVMs was 6,40,88,195. However, 5,38,225 valid postal ballots were not included in this figure. Adding the postal ballots to the EVM vote count brings the total number of votes polled to 6,46,26,420, with the total votes counted, including postal ballots, amounting to 6,45,92,508.

Earlier, Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Kishore Tiwari had raised concerns, alleging a difference between the voter turnout of 66.05% (6,40,88,195 votes) and the total votes counted (6,45,92,508), a discrepancy of 504,313 votes. Tiwari questioned the source of these "extra" votes and raised doubts about the integrity of the election process, citing the supposed failure of advanced technology used in the elections.