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Challenge of EC’s decision in SC: The Supreme Court will hear on Monday the PIL challenging two orders issued by the Election Commission. This petition is a PIL filed in the Supreme Court by Indu Prakash Singh on the Election Commission’s decision to increase the number of voters at each polling station in each constituency in India.
Actually, two notifications were issued by the Election Commission in August 2024. According to this order, the number of voters at each polling station in the country was ordered to be increased from 1200 to 1500. A public interest litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging this order.
Speaking about this PIL, Indu Prakash Singh’s lawyer Abhishek Singhvi said that by increasing the number of voters at each polling station from 1200 to 1500, there is a possibility of the deprived community participating in the voting. Because if the number of voters is more at any booth, voting will take more time. This means that long queues and waiting at polling stations can create problems for voters.
what did the bench say
On the petitioner’s argument, the bench said that the Election Commission wants more people to vote and the use of EVMs saves time. The Commission is trying to use more EVMs to reduce voting time.
This will affect the next elections
It has been said in the petition that this decision of the Election Commission will affect the voters during the assembly elections to be held in Bihar and Delhi next year. Senior lawyer Abhishek Singhvi says that voting takes 1 second, so in a day 660 to 490 people can cast their votes at a polling center with one EVM. The average voting percentage is 65.70 percent, so it can be estimated that about 650 voters turn up at a polling station designed to accommodate 1,000 voters.
It has also been said in the PIL that, ‘There are such booths in the country where around 85-90 percent voting takes place. About 20 per cent of voters will stand in queues after polling hours or will abandon exercising their franchise due to long waits. None of this is acceptable in a progressive republic or democracy.