Pointing out that lakhs of polling officials are involved in feeding in the data and there is a system designed to throw up red flags in case of a mistake, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Wednesday said the Election Commission’s systems for managing electoral rolls, randomisation and deployment of EVM, voter turnout and results could not go wrong.
Speaking at an event to release the EC’s Lok Sabha 2024 Atlas, the CEC said behind the publication, which includes statistics of last year’s general elections, was the EC’s databases.
“What makes us sure that nothing can go wrong is that this data is fed by at least 10-10.5 lakh polling officials…There are so many people involved in this that as a design, nothing can go wrong,” he said.
In case anyone makes a mistake in feeding in the data, the system would throw up red flags, he said.
The CEC’s remarks come at a time when the Congress has questioned the EC over the increase in electors in Maharashtra between the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the Assembly election in the state five months later.
Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said that the EC only had 586 of its own staff, while about 2 crore polling officials, security personnel and agents of political parties are involved in carrying out a Lok Sabha election.
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which were held over seven phases, had 97.98 crore registered electors, out of which 64.64 crore voted (66.10 per cent turnout) at 10.5 lakh polling stations.
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A total of 8,360 candidates contested the polls for the 543 Lok Sabha seats.
Eight hundred women candidates, 7,554 male candidates and six third gender candidates were in the fray.
Atlas-2024 provides detailed information on various aspects of elections and election results.
The EC said the document is in line with its commitment to maximum transparency, accessibility, and greater disclosure of election-related data.
