Delay in turnout data triggers political row in Kerala

THe provisional widening in the late concluded Kerala assemblage elections stood at 79.63%, with serve votes in time to be tallied, the state’s chief electoral officer Rathan U Kelkar said on Monday.The declaration came after criticism from political parties, including the CPI(M) and the Congress, that the figures of the final voter turnout in the state were not being published by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on time.Kelkar rejected any “undue delay” in the release of the final turnout data, while underscoring that the EC had acted at the maximum possible speed in collating and publishing the data. “The figures will be published as soon as returning officers complete the consolidation process, adding that booth-level data has already been shared with political party agents as Form 17C,” he said.The state’s CEO stated that 78.27% of eligible voters in Kerala came at polling booths to cast their votes on the EVMs. An additional 1.36% of votes through postal ballots were also received, taking the provisional turnout up to 79.63%. However, 53,984 service votes are yet to be accounted for, he said, and the final turnout percentage will be revealed post-counting through the EC index cards.The total number of postal votes amounted to 368,193. The figure included 140,219 votes of senior citizens, 60,734 votes of persons with disabilities, 32,172 votes of people belonging to essential services and 135,068 votes of people who were on election duty, said Kelkar.Of the total electorate of 27,142,952, as many as 21,243,942 of them registered their votes through EVMs on polling day. This includes 11,303,410 women, 9,940,379 men and 153 transgender persons.The voter turnout is the state’s best in nearly three decades.He said 96.72% of those who eligible for home voting exercised their franchise in the state.Earlier, in a letter dated April 12 and addressed to CEC Gyanesh Kumar, Kerala leader of Opposition and Congress Leader Satheesan pointed out that despite three days having passed since polling concluded on April 9, the detailed and authenticated figures — including constituency-wise polling data, constituency-wise vote percentage, and postal ballot statistics — remain unavailable on the ECI’s official website. “The prompt release of such a information is crucial to ensuring transparency, enabling public scrutiny, and maintaining trust in the electoral process,” he wrote, urging the Commission to take immediate steps to publish the complete election data without further delay.The concern was echoed on the other side of the political spectrum as well. CPI(M) leader V. Sivankutty termed the delay “unusual,” saying four days had passed since the election and it was quite unusual that the ECI was yet to release the final vote count. He said, “The Commission should immediately publish the final tally combining votes recorded in EVMs, service votes, postal ballots and votes cast at home”, and sought clarity on the reasons for the delay, saying that “in an era of advanced technology, such a lag in compiling data raises concerns over transparency”.The four-day wait contrasts with established practice in past elections, where constituency-wise turnout data has typically been available within 48 to a maximum of 72 hours of polling concluding as per results published by the ECI. The ECI’s own manual states that final authenticated voter turnout figures should be published within one to three days after polling day.Kerala voted in a single phase on April 9 with no repolls, meaning the data should have been available by April 12 at the latest.Kelkar responded to the concerns when speaking to HT, asserting that the time taken to release the final polling figures was not abnormal and that the data was not being deliberately withheld. He said, “The figures will be published as soon as returning officers complete the consolidation process, adding that booth-level data has already been shared with political party agents as Form 17C”.