After seven rounds of Lok Sabha elections, the counting of votes will take place tomorrow on June 4. Before this, the Election Commission held a press conference on Monday. Meanwhile, the Election Commission stood up and congratulated all the voters who participated in the Lok Sabha elections 2024. Addressing the media, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that we have created a world record of 642 million voters. This is 1.5 times the voters of all G7 countries and 2.5 times the voters of 27 EU countries.
CEC Rajiv Kumar said that due to the careful and vigilant work of the election personnel, we ensured less re-polls. We saw 39 re-polls in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, while there were 540 re-polls in 2019. In this too, 25 out of 39 re-polls took place in only two states. He also stressed that this is one of the general elections in which we have not seen violence. This is the result of our two years of preparation.
Along with this, the Chief Election Commissioner said that in some memes on social media, the Election Commissioners were presented as 'missing gentlemen' and it was said that we were always here, never lost. He said that now the meme makers can say that the 'missing gentleman' has returned.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, while giving information about the counting process for declaring the results of the Lok Sabha elections on June 4, said that the entire counting process is completely robust. It works with the accuracy of a clock. He said that the counting of postal ballots will start first. After half an hour we will start counting EVMs.
He said that there is a very strong system for counting of votes and other election processes. Every part is fixed. The counting process has been codified. There can be no problem in the system. Human error can happen to anyone. We will deal with it. The entire process of counting votes is strong.
The Chief Election Commissioner said that for the first time we have decided that if there is violence after the elections, then paramilitary forces will remain present in some states even after the MCC. Talking about Jammu and Kashmir, Rajiv Kumar said that we will soon start the process of assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
Responding to the allegations of Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, the Chief Election Commissioner said that the Union Home Minister called the DM/RO (Returning Officer) on the allegation of Jairam Ramesh, Rajiv Kumar said how can this happen?…Can anyone influence them (DM/RO)? Tell us who did this, we will punish him… It is not right that you spread rumours and put everyone in doubt.
The Election Commissioner said that we learned two lessons from this election. First, the biggest lesson from the election is that the voting process should be completed before summer and second, the Election Commission failed to understand the false stories about wrong voter lists and voting figures. More preparations will have to be made to fight this.
Highlights of the election press conference:-
- India created a world record with the participation of 64.2 crore voters including 31.2 crore women in the Lok Sabha elections.
- CEC Rajiv Kumar called election commissioners 'missing gentlemen' on social media, said, “We were always here, never disappeared.”
- The world's largest election process involved more than 68,000 monitoring teams and 15 million polling and security personnel.
- Around four lakh vehicles, 135 special trains and 1,692 air flights were used for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
- There were only 39 re-polls in the 2024 general election, compared to 540 in 2019.
- Jammu and Kashmir recorded the highest voter turnout in four decades, at 58.58 per cent overall and 51.05 per cent in the Valley.
- Rs 10,000 crore including cash, free gifts, drugs and alcohol was seized during the 2024 elections. In 2019, this figure was Rs 3,500 crore.
- More than 90 percent of the 495 complaints of violation of the Model Code of Conduct during the general elections were resolved.
- To streamline the election process, the Election Commission issued notices to top leaders, filed FIRs against many and transferred top officials.
- All development work had come to a halt during the election cycle, with the Election Commission approving 95–98 per cent of projects within 48 hours of application.