83K votes Deleted Before Polls, 75K added Back After Results?

The opposition parties in India have been largely criticising the operations of the election commission, saying that the EVM voting procedure is not being carried out properly.

Now there is a very interesting development in this regard, and this has something to do with the recently concluded West Bengal elections.

Incidentally, the Supreme Court has sought an affidavit from the Election Commission of India on the status of appeals before the tribunals dealing with voter-list exclusions in West Bengal.

The figures discussed in the hearing are very interesting with roughly 83,000 votes deleted before the polls and about 75,443 of them restored after the election.

The hearing also raised the extraordinary fact that only around 7 lakh appeals were filed by people seeking restoration of their own names, while the overwhelming majority were reportedly appeals seeking the deletion of someone else’s name.

The Court has asked the ECI to disclose how many cases remain pending, how many concern people seeking restoration, how many have been decided. The Chief Justice also stressed that the matter must be resolved before the next parliamentary election.

The opposition parties are now commenting that this is a strong indication of the questionable practices of the EC in the country.