Late surge in voting in Delhi polls, spooks AAP, ECI rubbishes accusations

Mumbai: The late evening surge in voting on February 8 in the New Delhi assembly elections appears to have spooked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its supporters into raising the by now all too familiar questions over the vulnerability of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). On Sunday though, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh slammed the Election Commission of India (ECI) for not being prompt enough in announcing the official voting percentage figures. The ECI steadfastly has refuted the AAP apprehensions. However, the late evening surge in voting has raised question mark over the Exit Poll predictions aired by some private Television news channels.

Speaking to TheNews21 on conditions of anonymity an official from the ECI disclosed this time what the office of the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) did was to ask all its polling booth parties to submit their poll dairies at the central polling station, where the calculation was made. He added that this time around people turned up for voting late due to cold conditions.

“In some assembly constituencies and in some polling booths, polling went on till as late as 9 pm. By law the ECI is mandated to allow all the eligible voters standing in the queue before the official closing time of 6 pm, all such people standing in the queue are allowed to vote. Till the last person casts his or her vote, we have to wait”, said the ECI official.

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When asked about the voting percentage declared on Saturday, the ECI official clarified “what was put out on the ECI Voter Turnout App was tentative and progressive figures. Tabulating and arriving at the precise figure takes time, especially if in some polling booths the voting is still going on “

On the issue of apprehensions being expressed by AAP and Congress leaders about vulnerability of EVMs, though the ECI official declined to make any comments, noted IPS officer D Roopa in a tweet took on the EVM bogey fear mongers. She tweeted “outside EVM strong rooms every candidate puts his own agents to keep watch isn’t it? EVM being ‘replaced’ yet?” Her response was to noted Supreme Court lawyer and Swaraj Abhiyan supporter, Prashant Bhushan who had tweeted “Is EVM replacement in the works?”

Congress supporter Tehseen Poonawalla in a tweet advised AAP volunteers to guard the EVMs and store rooms with all their life. “Suddenly voting percentage has been declared to have been shot up. Don’t leave the areas around the EVM”, he remarked.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, AAP RS MP Sanjay Singh and some AAP supporters raised question mark over what they called as ‘sudden spurt in voting’. One supporter argued that till 3 pm the voting percentage was 30.11 percent, by 3.30 pm it had risen to 40.59 percent , by 6 pm it was 54.67 percent and by 11.30 pm it was 61.56 percent. According to ECI, the official final voting percentage was 62.59 percent, which it declared on Sunday evening.

However, according to political experts in New Delhi the late evening surge in voting has raised question mark over the Exit Poll predictions made by some private television news channels. Most of the polling agencies and private Tv news channels have favored the AAP to retain power in New Delhi for the third time. It is only Chintamani-5Dots which has predicted a hung house in Delhi assembly.

But what critics and experts pointed out that most of the pollsters did their sample surveys between 2 pm to 4 pm, when the voter turnout was the lowest and did not take into account the late evening surge in voting. Counting of votes for all the 70 assembly constituencies of New Delhi will begin at 8 am on Tuesday, February 11.